In this Special Edition, we will zoom in on current challenges to free speech – specifically in the US. With me to discuss this timely subject, I have  CEO of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, who has just published her new book Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.

The conversation evolves the main conclusions of Suzanne’s book including matters such as:

• How Suzanne´s fight against an international blasphemy law at the UN inspired her to write the book
• How Suzanne’s 20 principles for free speech aims to provide a toolset needed to speak one’s mind in today’s diverse, digitized, and highly-divided society without resorting to curbs on free expression
• How we deal with hate speech without sacrificing free speech
• What we can do to avoid harm when speaking
• How so-called cancel culture has migrated from campus to elite media, corporate and cultural institutions
• How to balance social media platforms right to control public discourse and the snowballing societal consensus that media platforms need to do more to mitigate the harms of content posted on their services.

Suzanne Nossel is the CEO of PEN America. She has also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, and held senior State Department positions in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

“Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal,” declared the headline of a recent Atlantic article by law professors Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods. The piece argues that the U.S. must learn from China in regulating the internet. “[S]ignificant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet,” the authors write, “and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.”

But is this conclusion the only one available from the fallout of the coronavirus crisis? Or are there other ways to ensure a mature and flourishing internet in which free speech and public health can coexist? And could Facebook’s new Oversight Board be one of the answers?

Here to discuss the issue are two of the biggest experts on the subject of internet law and platform regulation: Daphne Keller, Platform Regulation Director at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center (formerly an Associate General Counsel at Google); and Kate Klonick, assistant professor at St. John’s University teaching internet law and information privacy, and a fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project.

In this episode we discuss:

• Whether social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been paragons of responsibility or the lapdogs of censorious governments, when it comes to content moderation?
• If the current crisis justifies lowering the threshold for when content is deemed “harmful” or if we should be even more vigilant about what stays online?
• Are there specific problems in the policies and guidelines laid out by health authorities like WHO and CDC, which have changed their position on issues like facemasks and included inaccurate information about the nature of COVID-19?
• What is the impact and outcome of automated content moderation based on the performance during the pandemic?
• Whether democracies — particularly European ones — have weakened online freedom by choosing to respond to legitimate concerns about hate speech, disinformation, and terrorist content with illiberal laws?

Show notes:

Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods in The Atlantic: “Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal”

Samuel Walker: “Hate Speech: The History of an American Controversy”

Daphne Keller’s Hoover Institution essay: “Who Do You Sue?”

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Since the coronavirus became a pandemic, governments around the world have adopted a wide range of measures affecting basic human rights. This includes many of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe all of whom are legally bound by the European Convention on Human Rights. Most states have limited the freedoms of assembly and movement, some have also limited privacy and data protection ­and then there are some who have restricted freedom of expression through laws or policies banning false information.

To discuss the implications for freedom of expression is none other than the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, who previously served as the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.

In a statement on April 3rd, Dunja Mijatović wrote: “The global health problems caused by COVID-19 require effective measures to protect people’s health and lives. This includes combating disinformation that may cause panic and social unrest. Regrettably some governments are using this imperative as a pretext to introduce disproportionate restrictions to press freedom; this is a counterproductive approach that must stop. Particularly in times of crisis, we need to protect our precious liberties and rights.”

In this conversation we discuss:

• The measures countries like Hungary, Romania, Russia and Azerbaijan, that typically target false information, have taken during the crisis.
• How bad the situation has become for free expression in Europe because of corona-related restrictions.
• Which types of restrictions that are particularly worrying and which countries that are of specific concern.
• If combating misinformation is vital during this crisis, why is it a problem if states adopt exceptional measures? Article 10 paragraph 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights allows governments to interfere with free expression for the purpose of “public safety” and the “protection of health.”
• According to case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the member states have a certain margin of appreciation when it comes to finding the right balance between convention rights (free speech) and competing interests (such as health and public safety). On the one hand the threat from Covid-19 give states a wide margin on appreciation, but on the other hand one could argue that access to information and scrutiny and debate of emergency measures is just as important.
• What types of measures that would be consistent with freedom of expression. Would it be legitimate to ban or remove statements that contradicted health advice by WHO or the national health authorities?
• Should journalists and media have more freedom than ordinary citizens expressing themselves on social media, blogs and so on.

Full Text of the April 3rd statement

Home page for Dunja Mijatović

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

The coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it. Billions of people across the world are caught in varying degrees of lockdowns with severe restrictions on their freedom of movement. But while our physical world has shrunk, cyberspace remains wide open. And there is no shortage of information as the internet overflows with torrents of data, news, and updates about the ongoing crisis. But in parallel with the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization has warned of an “infodemic” of mis- and disinformation spreading through social media and messaging apps.

Policymakers at social media platforms are acting like gatekeepers, deciding what content is sufficiently healthy for their users around the world to consume. These decisions have real consequences for the practical exercise of freedom of speech and access to information for billions of people. With me to discuss how Facebook is navigating this unprecedented situation is Monika Bickert, who is the Head of Global Policy Management at Facebook with responsibility for content moderation.

In this conversation we discuss:

• What policies Facebook has put in place to counter disinformation on its platforms;
• How much content has been downgraded and removed due to disinformation; compared to the period before COVID-19;
• How Facebook interprets the risk of “imminent physical harm” amidst a pandemic;
• How the shutdown has led to a sharp decrease of available content moderators and a reliance on automated content moderation to flag misinformation;
• Why Facebook has removed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s comments about the supposed effects of the drug hydroxychloroquine, but not President Trump’s comments about the same drug;
• The pros and cons of relying on the guidelines of health authorities like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and WHO to determine what constitutes misinformation even though these authorities have revised statements on issues such as the use of face masks (CDC) and the potential for human-to-human transmission (WHO);
• How Facebook uses a network fact-checkers to rate the truthfulness of stories, but who is fact-checking the fact-checkers?

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

In November 2019 German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a passionate speech to the German Bundestag. Merkel said “We have freedom of expression in this country…. But freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread … where the dignity of other people is violated.”

Merkel grew up under a stifling communist dictatorship and serves as chancellor of a country where vicious propaganda once helped paved the way for genocide. So few have stronger credentials when it comes to balancing the pros and cons of free speech. And Merkel’s words of warning are impossible to separate from Germany’s Nazi past following the democratic collapse of the Weimar Republic.  There can be no doubt that Merkel and the German commitment to “militant democracy” is motivated by a sincere belief, to paraphrase the political philosopher Karl Popper’s famous “paradox of tolerance,” that democracies must be intolerant towards the intolerant.

But there are also those who argue that criminalizing speech is a cure worse than the disease in democracies. To use a deliberately provocative term, laws against free speech might serve as “enabling acts” for authoritarian regimes to crush dissent once in power. 

George Orwell reached the opposite conclusion of Merkel. In the unpublished foreword to his famous novel “Animal Farm,” Orwell warned against the “widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods.” Orwell cautioned “that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you.” 

In this episode we will explore how Weimar Germany was deeply conflicted about the value of free speech. On the one hand, freedom of expression and the press were constitutionally protected. On the other hand, the constitution allowed censorship of cinema and “trash and filth” in literature. Weimar Germany enjoyed a vibrant public sphere with thousands of newspapers, daring art, great intellectuals and groundbreaking science, and yet, authorities used draconian laws and emergency decrees to curb newspapers and individuals seen as fanning the flames of political violence by anti-democratic groups on the right and left. This included one Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party. 

When the Nazis finally assumed power, they not only used terror and violence, but also turned the laws and principles supposed to protect the democratic order in to weapons against democracy, paving the way for totalitarianism, war, and genocide.

In this episode we will explore:

• How Weimar Germany abolished censorship and created a vibrant public sphere;
• How democracy was challenged by violent extremists on the political right and left;
• How Adolf Hitler viewed press freedom and free expression as corrosive principles which allowed “Poison to enter the national bloodstream and infect public life;”
• How Hitler used his devastating talent for public speaking to whip the crowds in Bavarian beer halls in to a frenzy of hatred and become leader of the NSDAP;
• How Weimar authorities failed to enforce bans against violent paramilitary groups on the right; 
• How Hitler and anti-Semitic Nazi newspapers like Der Stürmer and Der Angriff used bans against public speaking and punishments for speech crimes to gain propaganda victories and attract attention;
• How laws and emergency decrees to defend the republic led to increasingly draconian measures against the press, including 284 temporary bans of newspapers in Prussia alone, in 1932; 
• How Hitler used the constitution and existing laws to suspend the freedoms of speech, assembly, and association and terrorize political opponents through violence and mass detentions without trial in concentration camps;  
• How Hitler turned Germany into a one-party state in less than six months;
• How news laws turned any form of dissent, including jokes and rumours, into serious speech crimes;
• How Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment ensured the complete submission of the press, literature and art to the dictates of Nazi ideology;
• How some Germans continued to dissent including the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and
• How the combination of ideological censorship and propaganda paved the way for the shocking brutality of the German war machine and ultimately for genocide.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography: 

• Adena, M., Enikolopov, R., Petrova, M., Santarosa, V., & Zhuravskaya, E. (2015, June 3). Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany. Retrieved from here.
• Banville, J. (2009, February 28). Ruined souls. The Guardian. Retrieved from here.
• Barnett, V. (n.d.). Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Resistance and Execution. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved from here.
• Bytwerk, R. (2001). Pre-1933 Nazi Posters. German Propaganda Archive. Retrieved from here.
• org. (n.d.). Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Retrieved from here.
• De Grand, A. (2004). Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: The ‘Fascist’ Style of Rule. Routledge.
• Evans, R.J. (2007). ‘Coercion and Consent in Nazi Germany’. Proceedings of the British Academy 151, pp. 53–81.
• Facing History and Ourselves (2017). Outlawing the Opposition. In: Holocaust and Human Behavior. Retrieved from here.
• Flicke, W.F. (1953). War Secrets in the Ether. Parts I and II. Translated by Raw W. Pettengil. Washington D.C.: National Security Agency. Retrieved from here.
• Fulda, B. (2009). Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic. Oxford University Press.
• Griffin, R. (1993). The Nature of Fascism.
• Hale, O.J. (1964). The Captive Press in the Third Reich. Princeton University Press.
• Hoefer, F. (1945). The Nazi Penal System—I. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 35(6), pp. 385–393. Retrieved from here.
• Kershaw, I. (2010) Penguin.
• Kershaw, I. & Lewin, M. (eds.) (1997). Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Cambridge University Press.
• Kingsley, P. (2018, November 29). Orban and His Allies Cement Control of Hungary’s News Media. The New York Times. Retrieved from here.
• Passmore, K. (2002). Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Klemperer, V. (2013). The Language of the Third Reich: LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii – A Philologist’s Notebook. Translation by Martin Brady. Bloomsbury.
• Lemmons, R. (1994). Goebbels And Der Angriff. University Press of Kentucky.
• Marxists Internet Archive. Rosa Luxemburg: The Russian Revolution. Chapter 6: The Problem of Dictatorship. Retrieved from here.
• Museum of Modern Art (n.d.). Degenerate Art. Retrieved from here.
• Mühlberger, D. (2004). Hitler’s Voice: The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920–1933, vol. 1: Organisation & Development of the Nazi Party. Peter Lang.
• Niewyk, D.L. (2000). The Jews in Weimar Germany. Transaction Publishers.
• Orwell, G. (1972). The Freedom of the Press (proposed preface to Animal Farm). Retrieved from here.
• Passmore, K. (2002). Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Payne, S.G. A History of Fascism 1914–45.
• PBS (n.d.). Bonhoeffer: Timeline. Retrieved from here.
• Popper, K. (2013). The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton University Press.
• Ritzheimer, K.L. (2017). ‘Trash’, Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Germany. Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
• Rose, F. (2010). The Tyranny of Silence. JP/Politikens Forlagshus.
• Sherman, F. (n.d.) Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. 1^st Retrieved from here.
• Showalter, D.E. (n.d.) Jews, Nazis, and the Law: The Case of Julius Streicher. Museum of Tolerance. Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual Volume 6. Retrieved from here.
• Tworek, H. (2019, May 26). A Lesson From 1930s Germany: Beware State Control of Social Media. The Atlantic. Retrieved from here.
• Weitz, E. (2007). Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. Princeton University Press.
• Welch, D. (2002). The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. 2^nd Routledge.
• Wilke, J. (2013). Censorship and Freedom of the Press. In: European History Online. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Book Burning. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Culture in the Third Reich: Overview. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Dietriech Bonhoeffer. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Law and Justice in the Third Reich. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Nazi Propaganda and Censorship. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Nazi Political Violence in 1933. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The Reichstag Fire. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Otto Wels. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2013, May 13). Nazi Book Burning (video). Retrieved from here.

Primary sources

• Constitution of the Weimar Republic [1919, August 11]. Retrieved from here. See Article 118 for censorship.
• The German Workers’ Party [1920, February 24]. Program of the German Workers’ Party. In: Noakes, J. & Pridham, G. (eds.) Nazism 1919-1945, vol. 1: The Rise to Power 1919-1934. (University of Exeter Press, Exeter: 1998). Retrieved from here. See article 23 for press and censorship.
• The German Students’ Association [1933, May 10]. Fire slogans (Feuersprüche). English translation by Dr. R. Richter. Retrieved from here.
• Goebbels, J. [1933, May 12]. Executing the Will of the German Volk: Un-German Literature on the Pyre (Der Vollzug des Volkswillens: Undeutsches Schrifttum auf dem Scheiterhaufen). Völkischer Beobachter. Translation by Dr. R. Richter. Retrieved from here.
• Reichstag Fire Decree (Reichsgesetzblatt I) [1933, February 28]. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• Hitler, A. [1925]. Mein Kampf. English translation accessible here.
• Hitler, A. [1933, March 23]. Speech on the Enabling Act to the Reichstag. World Future Fund. English translation retrieved from here. Sound clip retrieved from here.
• Wels, O. [1933, March 23]. Speech against the Passage of the Enabling Act. Original German text in: Meier-Benneckenstein, P. (ed.) Dokumente der deutschen Politik, Volume 1: Die Nationalsozialistische Revolution 1933. (Berlin, 1935). English translation by T. Dunlap. Retrieved from here.

Great podcasts covering the subjects of this episode

The Third Reich History Podcast by Ryan Stackhouse and Chris Osmar. Episodes: ‘The Roots of Nazism Part Four – Criminalizing Conversation’, ‘The Concentration Camps Part One – Overview and Origin’, & ‘Nazi Spies, Policing, and Gender’. Accessible here.

In George Orwell’s 1946 work, “The Prevention of Literature,” he wrote:

[O]rganised lying … is … integral to totalitarianism, [and] would … continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary. … A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. … Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.

As we shall see, the Orwellian diagnosis of totalitarianism was surgical in its precision. But despite the defeat of European communism, fascism, and Nazism, the dark and bloody past of totalitarianism still casts long shadows on European liberal democracies. On the one hand, freedom of expression is a foundational value ensuring the pluralism and autonomy that is anathema to totalitarianism. On the other hand many countries restrict free speech to safeguard against totalitarian propaganda aimed at undermining democracy. This raises the question: Should we be most afraid of totalitarian movements abusing free speech to abolish other freedoms and democracy, or of democracies abusing limits on free speech to silent dissent? In this first of a two-part episode on totalitarianism in Communist Russia, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany, we will focus on the rise of communism and Italian fascism and the effects of these ideologies on free expression. Hopefully this journey into the darkest of pasts will help shed light on how to grapple with one of democracy’s eternal and inevitable dilemmas: What should be the limits of free speech?  

In this episode we will explore:

• How Tsarist Russia was the last European great power to abolish preventive censorship;
• How the fall of the Tsarist regime led to a brief period of full press freedom;
• How, once in power, the very first legislative act of the Bolsheviks was to suppress the “bourgeois press” by closing down hundreds of publications and print shops; 
• How Lenin and Trotsky defeated Bolshevik and socialist opponents who demanded an end to press censorship in revolutionary Russia;
• How Lenin combined suffocating censorship with terror against “class enemies”;
• How Stalin expanded Lenin’s repressive censorship machinery and radicalized the terror, killing millions of people; 
• How Mussolini went from working as a socialist journalist to founding a fascist newspaper;
• How fascist violence and intimidation paved the way for Mussolini to assume power;
• How Mussolini combined censorship and propaganda to ensure ideological uniformity of the press;
• How fascist blackshirts and secret police kept political opponents cowed through surveillance, intimidation, and murder; and
• How a novel on interracial love infuriated Mussolini and caused book censorship to be severely expanded.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography 

• Bellavance, O. (2015). Fourth Estate, Fifth Power: The Daily Press, the Public and Politics in Russia, 1861-1907. PhD Thesis, Yale University. 
• Ben-Ghiat, R. (2001). Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945. University of California Press. 
• Blium, A.V. (2003) A Self-Administered Poison: The System and Functions of Soviet Censorship. Trans. by I.P. Foote. Oxford: Legenda. 
• Bonsaver, G. (2007). Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy. Toronto, Buffalo & London: University of Toronto Press. 
• Bonsaver, G. (2003). “Fascist Censorship on Literarure and the Case of Elio Vittorini”. Modern Italy 8(2), 165–186.  
• Carsten, F.L. (1982). The Rise of Fascism. 2nd edition. University of California Press.
• Courtois, S., Paczkowski, A., Bartosek, K., Margolin, J.-L. Werth, N., Kramer, N., Murphy, J. (1999) The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press.
• D’Amato, D.S. (2016, January 28). Mussolini and the Press. Libertarianism.org. Retrieved from: https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/mussolini-press
• De Grand, A. (2004). Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: The ‘Fascist’ Style of Rule. Routledge.  
• Dewhirst, M. & Farrell, R. (1973). The Soviet Censorship. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press. 
• Ellman, M. (2002). “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments”, Europe-Asia Studies, 54(7), pp. 1151-1172. 
• Ermolaev, H. (1997). Censorship in Soviet Literature, 1917-1991. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 
• Finkel, S. (2003). “Purging the Public Intellectual: The 1922 Expulsions from Soviet Russia” The Russian Review, 62(4), pp. 589-613. 
• Griffin, R. (1993). The Nature of Fascism. Routledge.
• Kershaw, I. & Lewin, M. (eds.) (1997). Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison. Cambridge University Press.  
• Lemmons, R. (1994). Goebbels And Der Angriff. University Press of Kentucky.  
• Luxmoore, M. (2018, January 24). In Russia, ‘The Death of Stalin’ Is No Laughing Matter. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/movies/death-of-stalin-banned-russia.html
• Martin, J. (2008). Piero Gobetti and the Politics of Liberal Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan US. 
• Payne, S.G. (1995). A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Routledge.  
• Passmore, K. (2002). Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. 
• Plamper, J. (2001). “Abolishing Ambiguity: Soviet Censorship Practices in the 1930s” The Russian Review, 60(4), pp. 526-544.  In Russia, ‘The Death of Stalin’ Is No Laughing Matter. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/movies/death-of-stalin-banned-russia.html
  
• Resis, A. (1977). “Lenin on Freedom of the Press” The Russian Review, 36(3), pp. 274-296. 
• Ruud, C. A. (2001). “Russia” in R. J. Goldstein (ed.) The War for the Public Mind: Political Censorship in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Westport, Conn: Praeger. 
• Service, R. (2000). Lenin: A Biography. London: Macmillan. 
• Sherry, S. (2015). Discourses of Regulation and Resistance, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 
• Snyder, T. (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Tim Duggan Books.
• Strovsky, D. & G. Simons (2007). “The Bolsheviks’ Policy towards the Press in Russia: 1917-1920”. Working Paper no. 109, Department of Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University. 
• Thompson, D. (1991). State Control in Fascist Italy: Culture and Conformity. Manchester University Press.
• Welch, D. (2002). The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. Routledge.
• Wheatcroft, S. (2018). “The Turn Away from Economic Explanations for Soviet Famines”, Contemporary European History, 27(03), pp. 465-469. 

Primary Sources 

• Keep, J. L. H. (1979) The Debate on Soviet Power. Minutes of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, Second Convocation, October 1917-January 1918. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 68-89. Accessed here.  
• Gorky, M. (1918). Untimely Thoughts.
• Lenin, V. [1918, November 8]. Hanging order, to Comrades Kuraev, Bosh, Minkin and other Penza communists.Retrieved from: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ad2kulak.html
• Lenin, V. [1917, October 27]. Lenin’s Press Decree of October 27, 1917. Decrees of the Soviet Government (1957) Moscow: Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Vol. I, pp. 24-25. Accessed from here.  
• Mussolini, B. [1932] (1933). The Doctrine of Fascism. Political Quarterly. Translation by Jane Soames.  

In 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden sent shockwaves through the American government when he leaked information exposing a number of vast mass surveillance programs providing the U.S. Government and its allies access to global digital communication networks.

The harvesting of data by world governments has been aided by vast data collection by big tech companies like Google and Facebook, whose business models rely on knowing more about their users than their users know about themselves. The combination of state and corporate mass surveillance of the digital sphere has obvious consequences for both freedom of expression and information.

Private conversations are rarely ever truly private and the centralization of communication platforms allows both governments and corporations to censor and control the flow of information. This development has changed public perception of the digital age from one of unlimited freedom, promise, and possibilities to one of cynicism, fear, and paranoia.

But the age of mass surveillance was not ushered in with the internet. In fact, just as it is today, in its infancy, mass surveillance was dominated by the leading liberal democracy of the day: Great Britain laid the foundation for the practice of mass surveillance at the outbreak of World War I. And, as in the 21st century, the issues that drove the push for mass surveillance and censorship at scale were national security and fears of extremism, disinformation, and propaganda.

With us to discuss the history of mass surveillance and its consequences for freedom of expression and information today is Andreas Marklund, head of research at Copenhagen’s ENIGMA Museum of Communication.

In this conversation we will explore:

• How Britain built a system of mass surveillance during World War I through controlling and tapping global communication cables;
• How Britain’s interception of the so-called Zimmermann Telegram changed the course of history;
• How “fake news” and propaganda became a main concern and cause for censorship and manipulation of information by governments;
• How news agencies like Reuters became involved in this communication war through the influence of the British Ministry of Information;
• How telephone communications were systematically surveilled and censored in Scandinavia during World War I;
• How mass surveillance and censorship justified by war became useful tools for more general surveillance;
• How the development of radio caused panic among governments who could no longer control or access the flow of information across borders;
• How, according to a secret report, Nazi Germany exploited mass surveillance “to give the government… such far-reaching insight into the thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of the entire German people as had never been known in all history;”
• The similarities and differences between the mass surveillance systems built during World War I and those of today;
• How mass surveillance differs in democracies and totalitarian states; and
• Whether mass surveillance is an inevitable part of modern life, even in liberal democracies.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson, the newly elected president, gave his first inaugural address. Jefferson eloquently dismissed the logic behind the Sedition Act of 1798, which had sent Republican critics of then-Federalist President John Adams to prison:

We are all republicans: we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.

Based on this strong commitment to a robust protection of free speech, one might have expected the First Amendment to play a key role in entrenching the Jeffersonian vision of free expression. But instead, it became an almost dead letter for more than a century until revived by an iconic but unlikely champion of the First Amendment: Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

In this conversation, professor Thomas Healy explains how Wendell Holmes changed his mind on free speech and laid the foundation for the current strong legal protection of the First Amendment. Thomas Healy is a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law and the author of the award-winning book “The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind–And Changed the History of Free Speech in America”. 

The conversation will explore:

• Why the First Amendment remained a dead letter in 19th century America.
• How Oliver Wendell Holmes’ background shaped his opinions and outlook.
• How Oliver Wendell Holmes long upheld a “Blackstonian” conception of free speech protecting only against prior restraints on, not subsequent punishments of, speech.  
• How the Blackstonian conception of free speech permitted the federal and local governments to restrict and punish everything from peaceful public protests, obscenity, and political speech of “bad tendency.”
• How the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 led to dramatic restrictions of political speech and indictments of thousands of activists protesting American participation in World War I. 
• The remarkable development in Wendell Holmes’ conception of the First Amendment, from his opinion upholding conviction in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States to his famous dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States. 
• How a number of young scholars like Learned Hand, Harold Laski, Zechariah Chafee, and Felix Frankfurter were instrumental in changing Wendell Holmes’ mind on the limits of free speech. 
• How Oliver Wendell Holmes introduced the clear and present danger test, which would become an important test under First Amendment law over the coming decades.
• Whether Wendell Holmes’ legacy will endure in the 21st century, and would he even want it to in the digital age?

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

During the mass protests that have rocked Hong Kong since June 2019, pro-democracy protesters have waved Union Jack flags and been singing God Save the Queen –– a clear rejection of the authoritarian political system of mainland China in favor of the political system inherited from the British colonial past. This past system was supposedly based on the rule of law and political liberties, including freedom of the press. 

The symbolic value of the pro-British sentiments of Hong Kong’s protesters would not be lost on Britain’s imperial masterminds and administrators, many of whom thought that empire and liberalism went hand in hand. In a combination of genuine goodwill and blatant ethnocentrism, the British colonizers took on the burden of civilizing the world and ensuring that the sun would never set on press freedom.

But the actual practice of British colonialism was very different from the idealized version dreamt up by English liberal imperialists and modern Hong Kong protesters. Colonial officials were more than willing to use censorship and repression when news and ideas were thought to threaten British interests in places like Hong Kong, India, and Africa. The laws and practices that they used for those purposes not only stifled criticism of colonialism, but also did so on the basis of crude racial and ethnic prejudices. This created a parallel system of censorship and repression that severely undermined the liberal credentials of Britain, and included victims like Mahatma Gandhi and the Kenyan activist Harry Thuku. And as we shall see, the British legacy of censorship and repression still shapes the climate for free speech in some former colonies.    

Much of the same tension characterized France’s colonial empire, supposedly built on its commitment to universal human rights stretching back to the Declaration of the Rights of Man –– a commitment that became difficult to sustain when the colonized insisted that freedom and imperialism were incompatible. 
 

In this episode, we’ll see how British and French colonial authorities struggled to reconcile their commitment to liberalism with colonial empire and: 

• How the British crafted an Indian Penal Code that criminalized sedition, communal hate speech, and blasphemy, 
• How prominent Indian nationalists like Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi were convicted of sedition, 
• How Gandhi gave a stirring defense of the fundamental value of free speech when tried for sedition, 
• How Indians in East Africa collaborated with Africans in spreading anti-colonial dissent in Indian-owned newspapers and publications, 
• How African nationalists protesting racist policies and exploitation were exiled by the British,   
• How British West Africa developed a free and thriving press until British repression in the 1930s,  
• How the British introduced preventive censorship in Hong Kong during World War I,  
• How the British maintained a separate system of preventive censorship of Chinese language newspapers in Hong Kong even after the war, 
• How the British adopted special censorship guidelines for cinema based on crude racial and ethnic considerations, 
• How Chinese language newspapers mounted a principled defense of press freedom in Hong Kong, 
• How the French in Indochina (Vietnam) went from tolerance to active repression of local newspapers, and 
• How African activists were exiled to the “Dry Guillotine” of the Mauritanian desert when protesting French rule. 

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography

• Acharya, B. (2016, February 18). The Second Coming of Sedition. The Wire. Retrieved from here.
• Acharya, B. (2015). ‘Free speech in India: Still plagued by pre-modern laws’. Media Asia 42(3-4), pp. 157–160.
• Augustyn, A. (n.d.) Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from here.
• BBC (2019, June 24). Hong Kong profile – Timeline: A chronology of key evens. Retrieved from here.
• Bombay High Court (n.d.). SECOND TlLAK TRIAL-1909. Retrieved from here.
• Bombay High Court (n.d.). FIRST TILAK TRIAL – 1897. Retrieved from here.
• Brückenhaus, D. (2017). Policing Transnational Protest: Liberal Imperialism and the Surveillance of Anticolonialists in Europe, 1905-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Campbell, J.W. (1998). The Emergent Independent Press in Benin and Cote D’ivoire: From Voice of the State to Advocate of Democracy. Westport, CT: Praeger.
• Conklin, A. L. (1998). “Colonialism and Human Rights, A Contradiction in Terms? The Case of France and West Africa, 1895-1914” The American Historical Review, 103(2), pp. 419-42.
• Conklin, A. L. (1997) A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Dalton, D. (2012). Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action. Columbia University Press.
• Darnton, R. (2014). Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature.W. Norton & Company.
• Fischer, L. (2006). Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Times. Bombay, IN: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
• Fischer, L. (1983). The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. Bombay, IN: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
• Goscha, C. (2016) Vietnam: A New History. New York: Basic Books.
• Inden, R.B. (2000). Imagining India. Indiana University Press.
• Kerr, A. & Wright, E. (eds.) (2015). A Dictionary of World History, 3^rd Oxford University Press.
• King, K.J. (1971). ‘The nationalism of Harry Thuku: A study in the beginning of African politics in Kenya. Transafrican Journal of History 1(1) (January 1971), pp. 45.
• Marlow, I. & Lung, N. (2019, November 18). Hong Kong Court Finds Lam’s Mask Ban Unconstitutional. Retrieved from here.
• McDougall, E. A. (2018) “A Story of Exile, a Story in Exile: Louis Hunkanrin, Mauritania and ‘Un Forfait Colonial’ (Revisited)” in T. Green & B. Rossi, Landscapes, Sources and Intellectual Projects of the West African Past, Boston: Brill
• Metcalf, T.R. (2008). The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3.4: Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge University Press.
• Newman, D. (2013). ‘British Colonial Censorship Regimes: Hong Kong, Straits Settlements’ & ‘Shanghai International Settlement, 1916–1941’. In: Biltereyst, D. & Winkel, R.V. (eds.) Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World. Palgrave Macmillan US.
• Ng, M. (2017). ‘When Silence Speaks: Press Censorship and Rule of Law in British Hong Kong, 1850s–1940s’. Law & Literature 29(3), pp. 425–456.
• Palmowski, J. (ed.) (2019). Tilak, Bal Gangadhar. A Dictionary of Contemporary World History, 5^th Oxford University Press.
• Pasquier, R. (1962) “Les débuts de la presse au Sénégal” Cahiers d’Études africaines, 2(7), 477-90.
• Parekh, B. (2001). Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Peycam, P. M. F. (2012) The Birth of Vietnamese Political Journalism: Saigon, 1916-1930, New York: Columbia University Press.
• Pourtalès, G. (1931) Nous à qui rien n’appartient: Voyage au pays Khmer. Paris: Flammarion
• Stokes, E. (1959). The English Utilitarians and India. Oxford University Press.
• Thioub, I. (2005) “Savoirs interdits en contexte colonial: la politique culturelle de la France en Afrique de l’Ouest.” In Chanson-Jabeur, C. and Goerg, O. (eds.) Mama Africa. Hommage à Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch.  Paris: L’Harmattan.

Primary sources

• British Hong Kong [1922, February 28]. 241 Emergency Regulations Ordinance. Retrieved from here.
• British Hong Kong [1914, April 24]. An Ordivance to Provide against the circulation in the Colony of seditious publications. Retrieved from here.
• Bombay High Court [1908, July 22]. Bombay High Court: Emperor vs Bal Gangadhar Tilak on 22 July, 1908. Indian Kanoon. Retrieved from here.
• Bombay High Court [1897, September 8-22]. Queen-Empress v. Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Keshav Mahadev Bal. Retrieved from here.
• Gandhi, M. [1921, December 29]. Speech before The Indian National Congress. (Madras, IN: C. Munisawmy Mudaliar and Sons). Retrieved from here.
• King, M.L. (1986). Chapter 13: Pilgrimage to Nonviolence. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Stanford University Libraries. Retrieved from here.
• Mill, J.S. (2006). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, vol. 30: Writings on India. Moir, Z., Moir, M., & Robson, J.M. (eds.). University of Toronto Press. Retrieved from here.
• Mill, J.S. [1852, June 21]. Testimony of John Stuart Mill before the Select Committee of the House of Lords, 21 June 1852. Parliamentary Papers, 1852-53, 30.
• People’s Republic of China [1997, July 1st]: The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Retrieved from here.
• Shangkun, Y., President of the People’s Republic of China [1990, April 4]. Decree of the President of the People’s Republic of China. Retrieved from here.

The 18th century ended with free speech in full retreat. With the French Revolution, the call for “Enlightenment Now!” was no longer seen as the harbinger of humanity’s inevitable march toward progress. It had become synonymous with radical forces of destruction drowning monarchy, tradition, and religion in the blood of kings, aristocrats, and nuns.

With the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, conservatives and monarchs were firmly back in power — and they had no intention of letting go. Never again were those rulers who put down wild-eyed revolutionaries like mad dogs going to allow radicals to seduce the people with lofty principles and propaganda.

In order to rebuild a stabile Europe with respect for authority and tradition, freedom of speech had to be reined in. Even in supposedly liberal Britain, William Pitt’s anti-revolutionary “reign of terror” of the 1790s was revived and intensified in the 1810s and 20s. In this episode, we see how European rulers weaved an intricate web of censorship and repression across the continent. We will see:

• How the Congress of Vienna entrenched an authoritarian and traditionalist political order in Europe after the battle of Waterloo
• How the Carlsbad Decrees centralized preventive censorship and limited academic freedom across the German Confederation
• How German writers like Heinrich Heine and Karl Marx fought an uphill battle against censorship and repression
• How European censorship was driven by a fear of the increasingly literate masses
• How the British government used the crimes of seditious and blasphemous libel to harass and intimidate political radicals and reformers
• How the Peterloo Massacre of workers in Manchester radicalized opposition to the Tory government and intensified the calls for reform
• How the radical publisher Richard Carlile spent 10 years in prison for selling deist and republican publications, including Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason”
• How Carlile and his workers ultimately defeated the government with a constant stream of “seditious” and “blasphemous” publications, despite being imprisoned and harassed
• How James and John Stuart Mill contributed to expanding the British tolerance of controversial religious and political ideas as the 19th century progressed
• How the French Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 led to brief periods of liberal euphoria and the collapse of censorship across Europe, only to be crushed by counter-revolutionary forces
• How the Iron Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck used a national emergency to crush socialist and social democratic newspapers and publications in the second half of the 19th century
• How the idea of press freedom and the mechanization of the printing press made pre-publication censorship impossible for most governments
• How press freedom regained its momentum at the end of the 19th century

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography:

• Charle, Christophe (2004) Le Siècle de la Presse. Paris: Le Seuil.
• Goldstein, Robert J. (1989) Political Censorship of the Arts and the Press in Nineteenth-Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Goldstein, Robert J. (2000) The War for the Public Mind: Political Censorship in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Westport, Conn: Praeger.
• Harling, Philip (2001) “The Law of Libel and the Limits of Repression, 1790-1832”. The Historical Journal, 44(1), pp. 107-34.
• Heady, Katy (2009) Literature and Censorship in Restoration Germany: Repression and Rhetoric. Rochester: Camden House.
• Höbelt, Lothar (2000) “The Austrian Empire” in R. J. Goldstein (ed.) The War for the Public Mind: Political Censorship in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Westport, Conn: Praeger.
• Isabella, Maurizio (2018) “The Political Thought of a New Constitutional Monarchy: Piedmont after 1848” in Douglas Moggash and G. S. Jones, The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jones, Thomas C. (2018) “French Republicanism after 1848” in Douglas Moggash and G. S. Jones, The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Leigh, Jeffrey T. (2017) Austrian Imperial Censorship and the Bohemian Periodical Press, 1848–71: The Baneful Work of the Opposition Press is Fearsome. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Lenman, Robin (2000) “Germany” in R. J. Goldstein (ed.) The War for the Public Mind: Political Censorship in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Westport, Conn: Praeger.
• Levy, Leonard W. (1995) Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Lobban, Michael (1990) “From Seditious Libel to Unlawful Assembly: Peterloo and the Changing Face of Political Crime”, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 10(3) pp. 307-352.
• McLellan, David (1995) Karl Marx: A Biography. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
• Merriman, John M. (1991) The Margins of City Life: Explorations on the French Urban Frontier, 1815-1851. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Osterhammel, Jürgen (2014) The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Pilbeam, Pamela M. (1991) The 1830 Revolution in France. Basingstoke: MacMillan.
• Pinkney, David H. (1972) The French revolution of 1830. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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• Poole, Robert (2006) “‘By the Law or the Sword’: Peterloo Revisited” History, 91(302), pp. 254-276.
• Quick, Amanda C. (2002) World Press Encyclopedia: a Survey of Press Systems Worldwide. Farmington Hills: Gale.
• Read, Donald (1958) Peterloo: The Massacre and Its Background. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Roach, John (1960) “Education and the Press” in J. P. T. Bury (ed.) The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 10: The Zenith of European Power, 1830-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Roach, John (1965) “Education and Public Opinion” in C.W. Crawley (ed.) The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 9: War and Peace in an Age of Upheaval, 1793-1830. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rosenblatt, Helena (2018) The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Séguin, Philippe (1990) Louis Napoléon Le Grand. Paris: Bernard Grasset
• Shaw, Padmaja (2012) “Marx As Journalist: Revisiting The Free Speech Debate” TripleC, 10(2), pp. 618-632.
• Sperber, Jonathan (2000) Revolutionary Europe, 1780-1850. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Sperber, Jonathan (2005) The European Revolutions, 1848-1851. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Standage, Tom (2013) Writing on the Wall: Social media – the first 2,000 years.
• Stark, Gary D. (2009) Banned in Berlin: Literary Censorship in Imperial Germany, 1871-1918. New York / Oxford: Berghahn Books.
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• Tilly, Charles (2005): Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834. London: Routledge.
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• Six Acts and Ten Articles. Retrieved from here.
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In this special edition of Clear And Present Danger we leave the past and jump into the present for a discussion on how international human rights standards are relevant to the burning question of where to draw the limits of free speech online”. With me to discuss this issue is Professor David Kaye, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, as well as a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. Professor Kaye is also the author of the recent book “Speech Police”. On Oct. 21, David Kaye presented a report to the UN General Assembly that attempts to provide guidance to both states and tech companies on how to safeguard online free expression while minimizing harms.

The conversation delves into questions such as:

• What is the state of free speech today;
• Why a historical perspective is crucial to understanding current challenges to free expression;
• How to reconcile the “schizophrenic” standards on free expression and hate speech under human rights law;
• How the UN human rights system has developed standards that are more speech protective than the European human rights system;
• Why the so-called digital era has resulted in more rather than fewer restrictions on free speech globally;
• Whether tech companies should base their community standards on human rights principles;
• Whether attempts by European democracies like Germany and France to limit online hate speech creates a risk of “moderation without representation” for users of social media platforms in the US and elsewhere;
• How to assess Mark Zuckerberg´s recent speech on free expression at Georgetown University;

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Faced with bloody terrorism democratic Europe has often reacted with tough measures. The UK Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 criminalizes expressing an opinion that is “supportive” of a proscribed organization if done in a way that is “reckless” as to whether it encourages support of terrorism. This makes it rather unnerving to jump into, for example, a Twitter thread on the age-old discussion of whether various groups are terrorists or freedom fighters. 

In this episode we’ll see how governments in the late 18th century reacted to a different kind of terror: the spread of revolutionary ideas and practice that shook the established order to the ground, including the actual Terror unleashed after the French Revolution spiraled out of control. Dutch “Patriots” took their cue from the American Revolution, using freedom of speech and hard-hitting newspapers to hammer away at the Stadtholder regime. How would the supposedly liberal and tolerant Dutch react when revolutionary ideas hit fever pitch in the 1780s.

In Britain, a pamphlet war between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine unleashed an unprecedented discussion of first principles that energized the lower classes and frightened the government. Could Britain maintain the delicate balance between order and liberty while holding at bay both revolutionary ideas and armies of France?

In this episode, we will discuss:

• How the Dutch “Patriot” movement used free speech and partisan newspapers to press for democratic reform and tolerance
• How the pamphlet “To the People of the Netherlands” became a rallying cry of the Patriot side 
• How the Stadtholder regime used repression and ultimately foreign invasion to silence the Patriots,
• How the French Revolution briefly brought free speech and democracy back with the establishment of the Batavian Republic
• How Burkes “Reflections on the Revolution in France” unleashed  a British pamphlet war for and against the principles of the French Revolution
• How Thomas Paine´s reply to Burke – “Rights of Man” – became the world’s highest selling book and spread the idea of democratic reform to the masses 
• How Prime Minister William Pitt responded by increasing repression of freedom of speech and assembly 
• How the “Royal Proclamation Against Seditious Writings and Publications” unleashed a witch hunt for members of the democratic reform movement  
• How Tom Paine became an enemy of the state, under constant surveillance, convicted of seditious libel and burned in effigy in towns all over Britain

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography:

• Barbour, J. (2009). ‘Wollstonecraft, Mary’. In: McCalman et al (eds.). An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776–1832. Oxford University Press.
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• Goldstein, R.J. & Nedd, A.N. (eds.) (2015). Political Censorship of the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-Century Europe – Arresting Images. Palgrave Macmillan, UK.
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• Tombs, R. (2015). The English and their History.
• Tuchman, B. (2011). The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution. Random House Publishing Group.
• van Bunge, W. (2018). From Bayle to the Batavian Revolution – Essays on Philosophy in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic. Boston & Leiden: Brill.
• van Eijnatten, J. (2004). ‘Between Practice and Principle. Dutch Ideas on Censorship and Press Freedom, 1579-1795’. In: Yearbook for Political Thought and Conceptual History 8, pp. 85-113.
• Velema, W.R.E. (2007). Republicans: Essays on Eighteenth-century Dutch Political Thought.
• Velema, W.R.E. (2003). ‘Introduction to Elie Luzac, An Essay on Freedom of Expression (1749). In: Laursen, J.C. & van Zande, J. (eds.) Early French and German Defenses of Freedom of the Press.
• Wass, E.A. (2006). ‘The Whigs and the Press, 1800–50’. Parliamentary History 25(1), pp. 68–87.

Primary Sources

• Adams, J. (1780–1). Correspondence with Joan Derk van der Capellen. Retrieved from here:
• Burke, E. [1790]. Reflections on The Revolution In France – In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris. Retrieved from here.
• Constitution of Poland [1791, May 3]. From Ludwikowski, R. & Fox, W.F. (eds.) The beginning of the constitutional era: A bicentennial comparative analysis of the first modern constitutions (Washington, 1993: Catholic University of America Press). Retrieved from here.
• European Commission (2018, September 12). State of the Union 2018: Commission proposes new rules to get terrorist content off the web. Retrieved from here.
• European Commission (2018, March 1). A Europe that protects: Commission reinforces EU response to illegal content online. Retrieved from here.
• King George III [1792, May 21]. Royal Proclamation Against Seditious Writings and Publications. House of Lords Journal 39: May 1792 21-30. (London, 1767-1830), pp. 431-458. Retrieved from here.
• Paine, T. [1791]. Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution. In: Thomas Paine: Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings (Oxford University Press, USA: 1998). Online version retrieved from here.
• Pitt, W. [1792, April 30]. Speech in the House of Commons. Retrieved from here.
• Price, R. [1789, November 4]. A Discourse on the Love of Our Country. Retrieved from here.
• Van der Capellen, J. D. [1781] An Address to the People of the Netherlands. English translation. Retrieved from here.

On Aug. 26, 1789, France’s National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Article 11 of the Declaration proclaimed:

The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

The French Revolution abolished pre-publication censorship and prompted a flood of political publications. But revolutionaries were deeply divided over where to draw the line between the declaration’s celebration of “freedom” and condemnation of “abuse” amidst a public sphere in which populists used increasingly incendiary rhetoric to sow division and discord. Old Regime concepts of honor, calumny, and libel survived the Revolution and evolved to justify the policing of opinions perceived to threaten the order and authority of post-revolutionary France, increasingly divided by competing factions. Ultimately, even liberals like Tom Paine — an ardent defender of the integrity and benevolence of the Revolution — had to succumb to the idea of political suppression as the Reign of Terror claimed thousands of victims condemned for speech crimes.

In this conversation, French Revolution expert Charles Walton sheds light on the evolution of press freedom and suppression during the Revolution. Walton is the director of the Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre at the University of Warwick in the U.K., has taught at both Yale University and Paris’ Sciences Po, and is the author of the prize-winning book, “Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech.” 

The conversation will explore:

• How the French Revolution abolished pre-publication censorship and unleashed a flood of publications;
• How almost all parts of French society continued to believe in Old Regime restrictions on post-publication censorship;
• How Jacobins, including Maximilien Robespierre, were amongst the most libertarian proponents of free speech in the early part of the Revolution;
• How the climate of free speech under the French Revolution compares to the climate during and after the American Revolution;
• How free speech restrictions became a tool of bitter political partisans;
• How approximately a third of those indicted by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror were targeted for speech crimes, resulting in thousands of executions;
• How the French feminist and author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, Olympe de Gouges, became a prominent victim of the Revolution;  
• How the legal restrictions on free speech were tightened after the Terror;
• Whether the ideas of Rousseau contributed to the Terror;
• How competing ideas of free speech and mores stretching back to the Enlightenment help explain contemporary France’s complicated relationship with free speech.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

In Nov. 2018, French President Emanuel Macron declared war on “offensive and hateful content” on the internet. Subsequently, France adopted strict laws against both online hate speech and fake news, which is thought to threaten France’s liberal democratic values. 

But this is not the first time in history that France has sought to combat supposedly “dangerous content” spread by clandestine networks intent on undermining essential values and moeurs. 

When Paris became the capital of the High-Enlightenment around the mid-eighteenth century, the Old Regime monarchy created a Maginot Line of overlapping pre- and post-publication censorship. This system was intended to ensure that good books were encouraged and privileged while bad books that attacked the monarchy and Catholic orthodoxy or morals were kept out of circulation or suppressed.  

Just as French regulators today may struggle to distinguish between hate and political speech, it was not easy to draw the line between useful new ideas and subversive philosophy in a society in flux. As Enlightenment ideas took hold and literacy increased, a public sphere emerged from under the shadow of royal absolutism and strict religious orthodoxy. In this sphere, Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire and Diderot fought to expand the limits of tolerance and free speech, while counter-enlightenment anti-philosophers tried to stem the rising tide of what they saw as godless sedition. Each faction tried to exert decisive influence over the institutions of the Old Regime and land the decisive blow in the battle over the public sphere shaping French mores. 

The stakes were high and the outcome uncertain. But perhaps the events of pre-revolutionary France may help explain why even today the democratically elected president of France has taken the lead in fighting the nebulous concept of “offensive and hateful content.”

In this episode, we will explore:

• How salons, cafés, and an increase in literacy and print created a new public sphere
• The ins and outs of pre-and post-publication censorship in the Old Regime
• How censorship and book monopolies created a booming black market, flooding France with philosophy and pornography 
• How a culture of honor limited free expression 
• How royal censors both furthered and frustrated the efforts of Enlightenment authors 
• How a group of radical Enlightenment philosophers challenged religious and moral authorities from the Salon of Baron D’Holbach and through the pages of the Encyclopédie — a bold and subversive attempt to compile all the knowledge in the world
• How France’s chief censor saved the Encylopédie from destruction and ensured its eventual triumph 
• How a 19-year-old teenager became the last person to be executed for blasphemy in France
• How French philosophers including Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire failed to formulate a coherent and robust free speech doctrine 

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography:

• Blom, P. (2012). A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. Basic Books.
• Darnton, R. (2014). Censors At Work: How States Shaped Literature. The British Library.
• Darnton, R. (2000, January 5). An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris. American Historical Association. Retrieved from here.
• Darnton, R. (1996). The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France. London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers.
• Darnton, R. (1987). The Business of Enlightenment – Publishing History of the “Encyclopédie”, 1775-1800. Cambridge, MA & London, UK: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.  
• Darnton, R. (1982). The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Darnton, R. (1971). ‘Reading, writing, and publishing in eighteenth-century France: A case study in the sociology of literature’.Daedalus 100(1), pp. 214–256.
• Darnton, R. & Roche, D. (1989). Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775-1800. University of California Press.
• Davidson, I. (2012). Voltaire: A Life. Pegasus Books.
• Dugdale, J. (2015, January 16). Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance becomes bestseller following Paris attacks. The Guardian. Retrieved from here.
• France, P. (2005) (ed.). Cafés and Restaurants. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2013). Libertas Philosophandi in the Eighteenth Century: Radical Enlightenment versus Moderate Enlightenment (1750–1776). In: Powers, E. (ed.) Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Israel, J. (2011). Democratic Enlightenment – Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2009). A revolution of the mind – Radical Enlightenment and the intellectual origins of modern democracy. Princeton University Press.
• Israel, J. (2006). Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2002). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford University Press.
• Gil, G. (2018). Blasphemy and defamation of religion following Charlie Hebdo Neville Cox. In: Temperman, J. & Koltay, A. (eds.) Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre. Cambridge University Press.
• Goodman, D. (1994). The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Cornell University Press.
• Grell, O.P. & Porter, R. (2006) (eds.) Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge University Press.
• Kelly, C. (2003). Rousseau as Author: Consecrating One’s Life to the Truth. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Kors, A.C. (2005) (ed.). Helvétius, Claude-Adrien. Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Oxford University Press.
• McMahon, D.M. (2002). Enemies of the Enlightenment – The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity. Oxford University Press.
• Pearson, R. (2010). Voltaire Almighty – A Life in Pursuit of Freedom. A&C Black.
• Popkin, J.D. (1989). News and Politics in the Age of Revolution: Jean Luzac’s Gazette de Leyde. Ithaca, NY & London, UK: Cornell University Press.
• Powers, E. (2013) (ed.) Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Quackenbush, C. (2018, November 13). French Regulators Will ‘Embed’ With Facebook to Monitor How It Combats Hate Speech.Time. Retrieved from here.
• Robertson, J. (2015). The Enlightenment – A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Rosemain, M. (2019, June 25). Exclusive: In a world first, Facebook to give data on hate speech suspects to French courts. Reuters. Retrieved from here.
• Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years. Bloomsbury.
• Strauss, L. (1988). Persecution and the Art of Writing. University of Chicago Press.
• The Guardian (2019, July 9). France online hate speech law to force social media sites to act quickly. Retrieved from here.
• Tortarolo, E. (2016. The Invention of Free Press: Writers and Censorship in Eighteenth Century Europe. Springer Netherlands. Kindle Edition.
• Walton, C. (2009). Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Primary sources

• Baron de Grimm [1815]. On Julie de Lespanisse. From Historical and Literary Memoirs and Anecdotes (London: Henry Colburn, 1815). Retrieved from here.
• Diderot, D. & d’Alembert, J.L.R. (1751–1765). Encyclopedic Liberty: Political Articles in the Dictionary of Diderot and D’Alembert.Edited by H.C. Clark, translated by C.D. Henderson. Retrieved from here.
• Gouvernement de la République française (2018). Combating the manipulation of information. Retrieved from here.
• Macron, E. (2018). IGF 2018 Speech by French President Emmanuel Macron. Internet Governance Forum. Retrieved from here.
• Parlement de Paris (1765, March 19). Arrest de la cour de Parlement… Retrieved from here.
• Rousseau, J.J. (1762). The Social Contract (Du contrat social; ou Principes du droit politique). Retrieved from here.
• Voltaire, F. (1764). Liberty of Opinion. Philosophical dictionary. Retrieved from here.
• Voltaire, F. (1764). Liberty of the Press. Philosophical dictionary. Retrieved from here.
• Voltaire, F. (1763). Treatise on Tolerance. Retrieved from here.

In his famous essay “What is Enlightenment?” the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant declared: “[E]nlightenment requires nothing but freedom … to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides: ‘Do not argue!’ … Only one ruler in the world says: ‘Argue as much as you please, but obey!’”

That ruler was Frederick the Great — and his influence was not lost on Kant.

“[T]his age is the age of enlightenment,” Kant declared. “[T]he century of Frederick.”

Frederick the Great ruled Prussia from 1740 to 1786 and launched a blitzkrieg of Enlightenment reforms impacting religious tolerance and freedom of speech. He was hailed as a philosopher king by Voltaire and gave refuge to scandalous writers who had been persecuted around Europe. But his rule was erratic, and often Absolutism would trump Enlightenment ideals.

In this episode, we cover Frederick the Great’s reign and his attitude and policies towards freedom of thought and the press. Topics include:

• How Frederick’s Enlightenment ideals reformed Prussia
• How he favored Enlightenment for the elite, but not the masses
• How Voltaire, Diderot, and D’Holbach clashed over the merits of Frederick’s enlightened despotism
• How Frederick offered refuge to scandalous authors such as the French atheist Julien Offray de La Mettrie
• The dos and don’ts of Prussian censorship
• How the enlightened Prussian public sphere differed from its French and American counterparts
• How the enlightened Prussian elite, including Kant and Moses Mendelssohn, praised both freedom of speech and Frederick the Great’s Enlightened Despotism
• How the death of Frederick and the ascension of Friedrich Wilhelm resulted in a backlash against enlightenment values, including free speech and religious tolerance

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography:

• Beales, D. (2005). Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe. I.B. Tauris.
• Blanning, T.C.W. (2016). Frederick the Great: King of Prussia. Random House.
• Blanning, T.C.W. (1990). Frederick the Great and Enlightened Absolutism. In: Scott, H.M. (ed.) Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in later Eighteenth Century Europe. Red Globe Press.
• Blom, P. (2010). A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. Basic Books. Kindle Edition.
• Bruford, W.H. (1966). ‘Chapter XIII: The Organisation and Rise of Prussia’. In: Lindsay, J.O. (ed.). The Cambridge Modern History vol. VII: The Old Regime 1713–63.Cambridge University Press.
• Campbell, T. & Shoberl, F. (1843) (eds.). Frederik the Great. His Court and Times. Lea & Blanchard.
• Clark, C. (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947. Penguin Books.
• DiCenso, J.J. (2012). Kant: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Commentary. Cambridge University Press.
• Dwyer, P.G. (2000). The Rise of Prussia, 1700-1830. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge.
• Edoardo, T. (2016). The Invention of Free Press.Springer Netherlands. Kindle edition.
• Fraser, D. (2001). Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. New York, NY: Fromm International.
• Grell, O.P. & Porter, R. (2006). Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge University Press.
• Hellmuth, E. (1998). Enlightenment and Freedom of the Press: The Debate in the Berlin Mittwochsgesellschaft, 1783–1784. History 83(271), pp. 420–444).
• Hettche, M. (2014, November 11). Christian Wolff. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 edition), E.N. Zalta (ed). Retrieved from here.
• Israel, J. (2011). Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2010). A revolution of the mind: Radical Enlightenment and the intellectual origins of modern democracy. Princeton Universty
• Israel, J. (2008). Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford Universty
• Kors, A.C. (2005) (ed.). Mendelssohn, Moses. Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Oxford University Press.
• Morrison, H. (2013). Authorship in Transition: Enthusiasts and Malcontents on Press Freedoms, an Expanding Literary Market, and Vienna’s Reading Public. Central European History 46(1), pp. 1–27.
• Niekerk, C. (2018) (ed.). The Radical Enlightenment in Germany: A Cultural Perspective. Brill.
• Pew Research Center (2018, October 14). Belief in God more widespread in Central and Eastern Europe. Retrieved from here.
• Powers, E. (2011) (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Richards, M. (2008). History Detectives – Red Herrings: Famous Words Churchill Never Said. Retrieved from here.
• Robertson, J. (2015). The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Schönfeld, M. & Thompson, M. (2014). Kant’s Philosophical Development. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Zalta, E.N. (ed.). Retrieved from here.
• Selwyn, P.E. (2000). Everyday Life in the German Book Trade: Friedrich Nicolai as Bookseller and Publisher in the Age of Enlightenment. Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Sorel, N.C. (1995, October 14). When Frederick Met Voltaire. The Independent. Retrieved from here.
• Temperman, J. (2017). Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Van Zanden, J. (2000). Prussia and the Enlightenment. In: Dwyer, P.G. (ed.) The Rise of Prussia, 1700-1830. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge.

Primary sources

• Bahrdt, C.F. (1787). On Freedom of the Press and its Limits. In: Laursen, J.H. & Van der Zande, J. (2003) (eds.) Early French and German Defences of Freedom of the Press. Brill.
• Frederick II (n.d.). Essay on the form of government. From Barker, J.L. (trans.) The Foundations of Germany. (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1916). Retrieved from here.
• Frederick II (1752). Political Testament. Retrieved from here.
• Kant, I. (1784, September 30 – published in December). Beantwortung der Frage: Was istAufklärung? [article]. In: Berlinische Monatsschrift. English translation retrieved from here.
• Luzac, E. (1749). Essay on Freedom of Expression. In: Laursen, J.H. & Van der Zande, J. (2003) (eds.) Early French and German Defences of Freedom of the Press. Brill.
• Mendelssohn, M. (1783). Translation and introduction by A. Altmann.

The Enlightenment’s emphasis on science, progress, tolerance and rationality attracted not only philosophers — even absolute monarchs dreamt of “Enlightenment Now.” But how do you incorporate the enlightenment’s revelations without undermining the traditions and ideas that legitimate absolute rule in the first place? Fortunately for Europe’s modernizing rulers, some of the continent’s most prominent 18th century philosophers — including Voltaire — stood ready to praise the new winds of “enlightened despotism” that took hold in places like Russia and Prussia.

In this episode, we cover Russia — the ground zero of enlightened despotism — and Tsar Peter the Great, who, according to Voltaire, single-handedly dragged the country across both time and place from the Dark Ages and Asia into the 18th century and Europe.

Among the topics tackled are:

• How the benefits of modern science, learning and the fresh air of religious tolerance attracted Peter the Great;
• How Peter believed in “moving fast and breaking tradition” and combined enlightenment reforms with ruthless suppression;
• How Peter kicked off his modernizing reform with a fashion statement: ordering men to shave their beards and women to dress like Parisians;
• How Peter’s reforms planted the seed for more liberal Enlightenment reforms;
• How Catherine the Great introduced the idea and principle of freedom of speech into Russia’s deeply traditional culture;
• How Catherine modeled her “Great Instruction” on the ideas of Montesquieu and Beccaria and corresponded with thinkers like Voltaire, Diderot, and d’Alembert;
• How Catherine reversed her course and tightened censorship;
• How the French Revolution caused Catherine to crack down on radical Russian writers like Alexander Radishchev and Nikolay Novikov; and
• How Alexander Radishchev relied on “freedom of the press as the great bulwark of liberty” to write the most radical and robust defense of free speech in Russian history.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Bibliography: 

• Aleksandrova, K. (2010, August 22). Catherine’s Maidens – Beautiful, Plain, Noble. The Moscow Times. Retrieved 9 July 2019 from here.
• Blom, P. (2011). A Wicked Company. Basic Books. Kindle Edition.
• Bobrovnikov, V. (2006). Islam in the Russian Empire. In: Lieven, D. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Russia. Cambridge University Press.
• Engel, B.A. (2006). ‘Women, the family and public life’. In: Lieven, D. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Russia. Cambridge University Press.
• Friedman, T.L. (2017, November 23). Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last: The crown prince has big plans for his society. The New York Times. Retrieved 9 July 2019 from here.
• Israel, J. (2011). Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2010). A revolution of the mind: Radical Enlightenment and the intellectual origins of modern democracy. Princeton University Press.
• Israel, J. (2008). Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford Universty Press.
• Hughes, L. (2006). Russian culture in the eighteenth century. In: Lieven, D. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Russia. Cambridge University Press.
• Hughes, L. (2002). Peter the Great: A Biography. Yale University Press.
• Kalin, S. (2019, March 27). Saudi women activists detail torture allegations in court. Retrieved 8 July 2019 from here.
• Kumar, K. (2017). The Russian and Soviet Empires. In: Visions of Empire: How Five Imperial Regimes Shaped the World. Princeton University Press.
• Lieven, D. (2006) (ed.). The Cambridge History of Russia. Cambridge University Press.
• Papmehl, K.A. (1971). Freedom of Expression in Eighteenth Century Russia. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Powers, E. (ed.) (2011). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Riasanovsky, N.V. (1985). The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought. Oxford University Press.
• Robertson, J. (2015). The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Shank, J.B. (2015). Voltaire. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Zalta, E.N. (ed.). Retrieved 8 July 2019 from here.
• Shishkin, M. (2013, July 1). Poets and Czars: From Pushkin to Putin: the sad tale of democracy in Russia. The New Republic. Retrieved 9 July 2019 from here.
• Smith, D. (2011). ‘Alexander Radishchev’s Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow and the Limits of Freedom of Speech in the Reign of Catherine the Great’. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Walton, C. (2009). Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition
• Zaretsky, R. (2017, July 30). “I Write on Human Skin”: Catherine the Great and the Rule of Law. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 9 July 2019 form here.

Primary sources

• Catherine the Great (1767a). Proposals for a New Law Code. Retrieved from here.
• Catherine the Great (1767b). Decree on serfs. Retrieved from here.
• de Missy, J. (c. 1730). Life of Peter the Great. Retrieved from here.
• Gordon, A. (1718). History of Peter the Great. Retrieved from here.
• Montesquieu, C.L. (1748). The Spirits of Laws. From: Complete Works, 4 vols. (1777). Retrieved 9 July 2019 from here.
• Von Korb, J. (1698-9). Diary. Retrieved from here.
• Voltaire: Letters On England. Translated and introduced by L. Tancock. Penguin. Kindle edition.
• Voltaire (1764). Philosophical dictionary. Retrieved from here.
• Voltaire (1750). La Voix du Sage et du Peuple. From: Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, Garnier, tome 23 (p. 465-472). Retrieved 8 July 2019 from here.

Great podcasts covering this subject

• Russian Rulers History Podcast by Mark Schauss. Episodes 29–51.

After a brief detour into the present, we return to Ground Zero of the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe, with this recap of past episodes and a brief overview of the themes and countries to be explored in the upcoming episodes as rationality and secularization sweep the continent turning tradition and authority upside down. Among others we touch upon: 

• How the early enlightenment resulted in greater religious tolerance’ 
• Why tolerance did not automatically go hand in hand with freedom of speech 
• How the “Dutch Dark Web” spread radical philosophy across Europe through clandestine printing presses and networks 
• How the treatise of “The Three Impostors” shocked Europe  
• How women enjoyed greater “conversational freedom” to discuss science, philosophy, and religion 
• How erotic and obscene literature made headway across the continent 
• Why European states´ book production and consumption went hand in hand with their respective censorship regime 

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall. 

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud. 

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com. 

Literature:

• Buringh, E. & van Zanden, J. (2009). ‘Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries’. The Journal of Economic History, vol. 69, No. 2 (June 2009).
• Darnton, R. (1971). ‘Reading, writing, and publishing in eighteenth-century France: A case study in the sociology of literature’. Daedalus 100(1), pp. 214–256.
• Delpiano, P. (2018). Church and Censorship in Eighteenth-Century Italy: Governing Reading in the Age of Enlightenment (Routledge Research in Early Modern History). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
• Edoardo, T. (2016). The Invention of Free Press.
• Fichtner, P.S. (2011). ‘Print versus Speech: Censoring the Stage in Eighteenth-Century Vienna. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Grell, O.P. & Porter, R. (1999). Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambrdige University Press.
• Israel, J. (2011). ‘Libertas Philosophandi in the Eighteenth Century: Radical Enlightenment versus Moderate Enlightenment (1750–1776)’. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Israel, J. (2010). A Revolution of the Mind.Princeton University Press.
• Israel, J. (2008). Enlightenment Contested. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford University Press.
• Jacob, M.C. (2000). The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford / St. Martin’s.
• Laursen, J.C. (2011). ‘Cynicism and Ideology behind Freedom of Expression in Denmark-Norway’. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• MacCulloch, D. (2004). Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490–1700.
• Nadler, S. (2011). A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age. Princeton University Press.
• Powers, E. (2011). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Robertson, J. (2015). The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Rosenblatt, H. (2011). ‘Rousseau, Constant, and the Emergence of the Modern Notion of Freedom of Speech’. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Sebastian, J.F. (2011). ‘The Crisis of the Hispanic World: Tolerance and the Limits of Freedom of Expression in a Catholic Society’. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.
• Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years. Bloomsbury.
• van Eijnatten, J. (2011). ‘In Praise of Moderate Enlightenment: A Taxonomy of Early Modern Arguments in Favor of Freedom of Expression’. In: Powers, E. (ed.). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Bucknell University Press.

June 4, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the bloody culmination of the Chinese government’s Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy students and activists. But all public discussion and memories of the massacre have been erased within China itself. In our second episode from the Oslo Freedom Forum, we will take a trip behind the Great Firewall into modern day China, where the most ambitious and sophisticated attempt to control the flow and content of information in the history of mankind is taking place. To enlighten us, we sat down with Megha Rajagopalan, who is a world correspondent for BuzzFeed News, and Yuan Yang, who is a Beijing correspondent for the Financial Times. In this discussion, we explore:

• The structure of Chinese online censorship and surveillance, in terms of scope and purpose.
• How the Chinese government applies new technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to ensure conformity in thoughts and action.
• How the online public is being “flooded” with pro-government propaganda in order to suppress criticism.
• How Xinjiang province has been turned into a surveillance police state.
• How Western companies, who enjoy the protection of the rule of law in their own countries, play a role in the Chinese censorship system.
• How China is exporting its supercharged system on censorship beyond its borders, and why even Western liberal democracies may not be immune.
• How extensive censorship may actually limit the Chinese government’s endeavors to control and monitor its citizens.
• Why there may still be grounds for optimism.

Megha Rajagopalan is a world correspondent for BuzzFeed News and is based in the Middle East. She is the former China bureau chief for BuzzFeed and former political correspondent for Reuters in Beijing. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, WIRED, and other publications.

Yuan Yang is a Beijing correspondent for the Financial Times and writes about China’s technology. Before that, she wrote about development economics as a Marjorie Deane intern for The Economist in London. She is the co-founder of Rethinking Economics, a charity that seeks to make economics teaching more relevant to the 21st century.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Today´s episode is going to be a radical departure from the chronological timeline of the general podcast so far. I´m currently in Oslo for the annual Oslo Freedom Forum, organized by the Human Rights Foundation. The Oslo Freedom Forum is a unique gathering of human rights and democracy activists from all over the world joining forces to connect, share ideas and build alliances to strengthen freedom and undermine authoritarianism. To take advantage of the Oslo Freedom Forum I have decided to do a number of Expert Opinions on current cutting-edge topics related to free speech. The first episode will look at the why the so-called “Democratic Recession” is mirrored by a “Free Speech Recession,” with Stanford Professor Larry Diamond. In this discussion we explore:

• The nature and consequences of the “Democratic Recession”
• Why restricting freedom of expression is the precondition for the assault on democracy
• Why and modern authoritarian populist repression differs from the totalitarian methods of the 20th century
• An exposé of the step-by-step authoritarian´s guide to dismantle independent media, dissent and civil society (meant as a warning not a manual!)
• Why restrictions of free speech in liberal democracies embolden censorship efforts in authoritarian regimes
• The consequences of the current American administration´s hostility to independent media and disengagement from promoting free speech norms
• Whether social media has been a net benefit or liability to the causes of free speech and democracy
• Why and how global norms matter, and can help reverse the “Free Speech Recession”

Larry Diamond is professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy. He has written extensively on democracy and is most recently the author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the “Great Firewall.”

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

In 1787, the newly authored U.S. Constitution was sent out to the states for ratification. Despite fierce objections from Anti-Federalists, the Constitution did not include a bill of rights protecting freedom of speech and the press. The Anti-Federalist newspaper the Independent Gazetteer published an ironic comment on what the future of free speech would look like if the Constitution was ratified:

Ah! what glorious days are coming; how I anticipate the brilliancy of the American court! … [H]ere is the president going in state to the senate house to confirm the law for the abolition of the liberty of the press. Men and brethren will not these things be so?

Even though the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791, the Independent Gazetteer’s withering sarcasm had been prophetic: On July 14, 1798, President John Adams signed the Sedition Act into law, making it a crime to “write, print, utter, or publish…any false, scandalous and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame…or to bring them…into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them…the hatred of the good people of the United States.”

A mere seven years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment’s promise that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” Congress had done just that. The Sedition Act paved the way for the prosecution and imprisonment of both journalists, editors, politicians, and ordinary Americans engaging in political, satirical and symbolic speech.

In part two of this conversation with NYU professor Stephen Solomon, we explore how the Americans who had championed freedom of speech as the “great bulwark of liberty” and thumbed their noses at English sedition laws in the lead up to the Revolution came to adopt their own sedition law. We discuss issues including:

• The deeply polarized political environment of the 1790s;
• The fiercely partisan attacks of both Federalist and Democratic-Republican newspapers on political opponents;
• How the Sedition Act differed from seditious libel under English common law;
• The arguments for and against the constitutionality of the Sedition Act;
• James Madison’s eloquent and elaborate defense of robust free speech protections;
• The congressman, journalists and ordinary Americans who were prosecuted and imprisoned for voicing their opinions;
• The prosecutorial zeal of Secretary of State Matthew Pickering and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase (aka “Old Bacon Face”);
• The unintended consequences of the Sedition Act which strengthened Democratic-Republican newspapers and politicians and weakened Federalists; and
• Thomas Jefferson’s magnanimous inauguration speech.

Marjorie Deane Professor of Journalism at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute; teaches First Amendment law and is founding editor of First Amendment Watch, which covers current conflicts over freedom of expression. Author of Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution was adopted as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791. This “Great bulwark of liberty” provides that

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

In this conversation with professor Stephen Solomon we will explore the origins and drafting history of the First Amendment including:

• The inspiration from early state constitutions and declarations in Virginia and Pennsylvania
• The Articles of Confederation
• The fierce debate surrounding the Constitutional Convention and ratification process.
• How Federalists and anti-Federalists clashed over the necessity of a bill of rights
• How some Federalists used the Heckler´s Veto to silence anti-Federalists
• James Madison´s first draft bill of rights and why Madison thought that the American conception of freedom of speech differed substantially from the British conception
• Whether Freedom of Speech is really “the First Freedom”
• What were the essential justification for freedom of speech envisaged by the Founders
• Whether the Founders would agree with 21. Century standards of free speech as developed by the Supreme Court

Marjorie Deane Professor of Journalism at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute; teaches First Amendment law and is founding editor of First Amendment Watch, which covers current conflicts over freedom of expression. Author of Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

In the second half of the 18th century, American Patriots showed that freedom of the press was a potent weapon against authority. Not even the world’s most formidable empire could stop them from speaking truth, lies, and insults to power.

In 1765, the announcement of the Stamp Act kicked off a tsunami of dissent in Colonial pamphlets, newspapers, taverns, and town meetings. The outpouring of protest shaped a public opinion increasingly hostile to taxation without representation and in favor of popular sovereignty. Additional taxes and disabilities imposed by Parliament further radicalized the Patriot side and the anti-British propaganda. The revolutionary dissent included both principled arguments, pamphlet wars, slander, and some genuine “fake news.”  

Since prosecutions for seditious libel had effectively been abolished by the Zenger case in 1735 (see episode 21), the British were powerless to stop the onslaught of Patriot fighting words. More than ever, press freedom had become the “Great Bulwark of Liberty.”

Though Patriots constantly invoked the principle of freedom of speech, Loyalist printers and newspapers were subjected to the “Patriot’s Veto” through intimidation and mob violence.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “Common Sense” became a sensation and pushed many Patriot fence-sitters into the independence camp. And just before and after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, several states protected freedom of the press in rights declarations.

In this episode we’ll explore:

• How a mix of ideas from classical antiquity and the European Enlightenment inspired the founding generation;
• How the democratization of access to print technology created a vibrant public sphere in Colonial America;
• How pamphlet wars were the 18th century equivalent of Twitter feuds;
• How the Boston Gazette became the centerpiece of #theresistance and the launch pad for fighting words directed at the British and Loyalists;
• How symbolic speech such as liberty trees, liberty poles and cartoons rallied popular opinion;
• How the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston became the “Headquarters of the Revolution”;
• How newspapers used “fake news” and analog “photoshopping” to further the Patriot cause;
• How Loyalist printers were silenced through intimidation and mob violence with the tacit consent of prominent Patriots like Thomas Paine and James Madison;
• How Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” steeled Patriots’ resolve and made the case for independence; and
• How the ideas of freedom of the press and speech were included in rights declarations of states like Virginia and Pennsylvania in 1776.

Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Litterature

• Allison, R. (2015). The American Revolution. Kindle edition. Oxford University Press.
• Amar, A.R. (2010). How America’s Constitution Affirmed Freedom of Speech Even Before the First Amendment. Faculty Scholarship Series 787. Retrieved from here.
• Armoy, H., & Hall, D.D. (2000): A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Bailyn, B. (1967). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Christie, I.R. (2018, December 22). John Wilkes. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from here.
• Curtis, M. (2000). Free Speech: ”The People’s Darling Privilege”. Durham/London, UK: Duke University Press.
• Eldridge, L. (1994). A Distant Heritage: The Growth of Free Speech in Early America. Kindle edition. NYU Press.
• Fischer, D.H. (1995). Paul Revere’s Ride. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Hargreaves, R. (2002). The First Freedom: A history of free speech. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing.
• Helderman, L.C. (1941). The Virginia Bill Of Rights. Washington & Lee Law Review 3. Retrieved from here.
• Jensen, M. (1969). The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Kramnick, I. (1992). Republicanism Revisited:The Case of James Burg. Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Soceity 102. pp. 81-98. Retrieved from here.
• Lepore, J. (2011). The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History. Princeton University Press.
• Levy, L.W. (1987). The Emergence of a Free Press. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Lynch, J. (2003). Wilkes, Liberty, and Number 45. Colonial Williamsburg. Retrieved from here.
• Maier, P. (1963). John Wilkes and American Disillusionment with Britain. The William and Mary Quaterly 20(3), 373–393.
• Maier, P. (1972). Colonial Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
• NPR (2015, March 2). Ben Franklin’s Famous ’Liberty, Safety’ Quote Lost Its Context In 21st Century. Retrieved from here.
• Ragosta, J.A. (2010). Wellspring of Liberty: How Virginia’s Religious Dissenters Helped Win the American Revolution and Secured Religious Liberty. Oxford Scholarship Online.
• Raphael, R. (2013, March 20). Thomas Paine’s Inflated Numbers. Journal of the American Revolution. All Things Liberty. Retrieved from here.
• Schlesinger, A.M. (1935). The Colonial Newspapers and the Stamp Act. The New England Quarterly 8(1), 63-83.
• Solomon, S.D. (2016). Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech. Kindle edition. St. Martin’s Press.
• Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years.
• Tortarolo, E. (2016). The Invention of Free Press: Writers and Censorship in Eighteenth Century Europe. Kindle edition. Springer Netherlands.
• United States History. (n.d.). Sons of Liberty. Retrieved from here.
• Vile, J.R. (n.d.). Virginia Declaration of Rights. The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Retrieved from here.
• Wood, G.S. (2002). The American Revolution: A history. Kindle edition. New York, NY: Modern Library.

Primary sources

• Adams, S. (1772, November 2). 2:352–53. Retrieved from here. Full book here.
• Backus, I. (1774). Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty. Retrieved from here.
• Blackstone, W. (1769). Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765–1769. Retrieved from here.
• Declaration of Independence (1776, July 4). Retrieved from here.
• Delaware Declaration of Rights (1776, September 11). Retrieved from here.
• Dickinson, J. (1767). Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. Retrieved from here.
• Henry, P. (1766). On religious tolerance. Retrieved from here.
• Madison, J. (1775, March). To William Bradford [letter]. Retrieved from here.
• Hume, D. (1742). Of the liberty of the Press. Essays Moral, Political and Literary. Retrieved from here.
• Montesquieu, C.-L. (1748). Of indiscreet speech. Spirit of Laws, 12, chs. 12-13. Retrieved from here.
• Montesquieu, C.-L. (1748). Of the Laws that Form Political Liberty, in Relation to the Subject. Book 12. Bk. 12 ch. 4. Retrieved from here.
• Paine, T. (1776). Common Sense [Pamphlet]. Retrieved from here.
• Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, Declaration of Rights (1776, September 28). Retrieved from here.
• Revere, P. (c. 1798). Letter to Jeremy Belknap. Retrieved from here.
• Mein, J. & Cooper, S. (1775). SAGITTARIUS’s LETTERS AND POLITICAL SPECULATIONS. Retrieved from here.
• Virginia Declaration of Rights. (1776, June 12). Retrieved from here.
• Virginia General Assembly (1792, December 27). An act against divulgers of False News. Retrieved from here.
• Virginia Resolves on the Stamp Act (1765, May 30). Retrieved from here.
• Virginia Resolutions of 1798 (1798, December 24). Retrieved from here.

18^th century America was impacted and influenced by the so-called Glorious Revolution in the Motherland. And no-one had a bigger impact on American attitudes towards freedom of speech than Cato’s Letters written by the Radical Whigs John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Cato´s Letters created a powerful free speech meme, that went viral in the colonies: “Freedom of Speech is the great Bulwark of Liberty”.  The reach of Cato’s principles grew exponentially as colonists liked, shared and commented on them in newspapers, pamphlets and taverns. Americans were persuaded that “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as publick liberty, without freedom of speech: Which is the right of every man”.  As a consequence, grand juries and juries refused to indict and convict colonists for seditious libel when criticizing governments and officials.

Despite the practical defeat of libels laws in colonial courts, legislative assemblies continued to threaten free speech. Under legislative privilege provocative writers could be jailed and fined by their own representatives. And even American heroes were sometimes willing to sacrifice principle.

In this episode we’ll explore

• How coffee-houses expanded the public sphere by cultivating the sharing of news and ideas, including revolutionary ones.
• How the common law crime of seditious libel impacted writers
• How English writers including Matthew Tindal, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon paved the way for American ideas on free speech
• How the editor of the New England Courant in Boston combined anti-vaxxer propaganda with free speech advocacy
• How the 16-year old Benjamin Franklin used Cato’s Letters to argue for freedom of speech when his brother James was in jail
• How the New York Weekly Journal became America’s first opposition newspaper and justified its savage hit pieces on New York governor William Cosby with Cato’s free speech principles
• How a jury acquitted the printer of the New York Weekly Journal Peter Zenger, even though he was guilty according to the law
• How legislative privilege was used to punish colonialists for offending their own representatives
• How Benjamin Franklin defended legislative privilege and the jailing of a Pennsylvania man for his writings

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Litterature:

• Allison, R. (2015). The American Revolution. Oxford University Press. Kindle edition.
• Armoy, H., & Hall, D.D. (2000). The Colonical Book in the Atlantic World: A History of the Book in America vol. 1. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Bailyn, B. (1967). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Bogen, D.S. (1983). The Origins of Freedom of Speech and Press. Maryland Law Review 42(3), pp. 429–465. Retrieved from here.
• Colombia Law School (2018, December 3). The Free Speech Century: How the First Amendment Came to Life. Retrieved from here.
• Curtis, M. (2000). Free Speech: ”The People’s Darling Privilege”. Durham/London, UK: Duke University Press.
• Duniway, C.A. (1906). The development of freedom of the press in Massachusetts. New York, NY: Longmans, Green, and co.
• Eldridge, L. (1994). A Distant Heritage: The Growth of Free Speech in Early America. Kindle edition. NYU Press.
• Hargreaves, R. (2002). The First Freedom: A history of free speech. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing.
• Kramnick, I. (1992). Republicanism Revisited: The Case of James Burgh. Proceedings of the American Antiquiarian Society 102, pp. 81-98. Retrived from here:
• Levy, L.W. (1995). Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press
• Levy, L.W. (1987). The Emergence of a Free Press. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Linder, D.O. (n.d.). Key Figures in the Trial of John Peter Zenger. Famous Trials. Retrieved from here.
• Martin, R.W.T. (2001). The Free and Open Press: The Founding of American Democratic Press Liberty. New York, NY: NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
• Mayer, D.N. (1992). The English Radical Whig Origins of American Constitutionalism. Washington University Law Review 70(1) pp. 131–208.
• Mitchell, A., Matsa, K.E., Gottfried, J., Stocking, G., & Grieco, E. (2017, October 2). October 2, 2017. Covering President Trump in a Polarized Media Environment. Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media. Retrieved from here.
• Encyclopedia of Philosophy (n.d.). Tindsal, Matthew (1657?–1733). Retrieved from here.
• Noyes, R. (2018, October 9). Study: Economic Boom Largely Ignored as TV’s Trump Coverage Hits 92% Negative. Media Research Center NewsBusters. Retrieved from here.
• Solomon, S.D. (2016). Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech. Martin’s Press. Kindle edition.
• Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years. New York, NY: Bloomsbury
• Taylor, A. (2002). American Colonies: The Settling of North America (The Penguin History of the United States vol. 1), revised edition. Penguin Books. Kindle edition.

Primary sources

• BY THE GOVERNOUR AND COUNCIL (1690, September 29). Retrieved from here.
• Franklin, B. (1737, November 17). On Freedom of Speech and the Press. The Pennsylvania Gazette. Retrieved from here.
• Franklin, B. (1758, April 27). Documents on the Hearing of William Smith’s Petition. Retrieved from here.
• New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). Retrieved from here.
• PUBLICK OCCURENCES, both FORREIGN and DOMESTICK (1690, September 25). Retrieved from here.
• Tindal, M. (1704). Reasons against restraining the press. Retrieved from here.
• Tindal, M. (1709). A Discourse for the Liberty of the Press. Four Discourses. Retrieved from here.
• Trenchard, J. (1720, February 4). Cato’s Letter no. 15: Of Freedom of Speech: That the same is inseparable from publick Liberty. Retrieved from here.
• Trenchard, J. (1721, June 10). Cato’s Letter no. 32: Reflections Upon Libelling. Rerieved from here.
• Trenchard, J. (1722, October 27). Cato’s Letter no. 100: Discourse upon Libels. Retrieved from here.

Trenchard, J. (1722, November 3). Cato’s Letter no. 101: Second Discourse upon Libels. Retrieved from here.

1685 was a watershed year for events that would lead to what we call the Enlightenment. France´s Sun King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and initiated a policy of religious persecution of Protestants. In England, the Catholic James II assumed the throne to the horror of the protestant majority in Parliament. From their exiles in the Dutch Republic, the French philosopher Pierre Bayle wrote his groundbreaking defense of religious tolerance “Commentaire Philosophique” and John Locke wrote the original Latin version of his Letter Concerning Toleration. In this episode, we trace the seeds of the Enlightenment covering events in France, the Dutch Republic, and England.

• Why did Louis XIV revoke the Edict of Nantes and what were the consequences?
• Why did the Dutch Republic become famous for its religious tolerance and open debate in the 17^th Century?
• Who was the late 16^th century Dutch thinker who opposed censorship six decades before Milton?
• Why were several members of Spinoza´s circle of radical Dutch freethinkers targeted by censorship and repression?
• Why was the complete work of Spinoza and even the reworking of his ideas banned in the Dutch Republic?
• Why were Pierre Bayle’s ideas so controversial that he lost his professorship?
• Why did the Anglican majority in the English Parliament oppose religious tolerance favoured by both Charles II and James II?
• How tolerant was the Toleration Act really?
• How did John Locke provide the intellectual killer blow to the English Licensing Act?
• What were the consequences of the end of pre-publication censorship in England?

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Literature:

• Adams, G. (1991). The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685–1787: The Enlightenment Debate on Toleration: The Enlightenment Debate on Toleration. Waterloo, CA: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
• Bejan, T.M. (2017). Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Blom, P. (2012). A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. New York, NY: Basic Books.
• Bossy, J. (1991). English Catholics after 1988. In: Grell, O.P., Israel, J., & Tyacke, N. (eds.). From Persecution to Tolerance: The Glorious Revolution in England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Bost, H. (2009). Pierre Bayle And Censorship. in: Lærke, M. (ed.): The Use of Censorship in the Enlightenment. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
• Gibbs, G.C. (1991). The Reception of the Huguenots in England and the Dutch Republic, 1680-1690. In: Grell, O.P., Israel, J., & Tyacke, N. (eds.). From Persecution to Tolerance: The Glorious Revolution in England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Grell, O.P. (1991). Introduction. In: Grell, O.P., Israel, J., & Tyacke, N. (eds.). From Persecution to Tolerance: The Glorious Revolution in England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Harline, C.E. (1987). Pamphlets, Printing, and Political Culture in the Early Dutch Republic. Dordrecht, NL: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
• Israel, J. (2009). Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (2001). Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Israel, J. (1998). The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
• Israel, J. (1991). William III and Toleration. In: Grell, O.P., Israel, J., & Tyacke, N. (eds.). From Persecution to Tolerance: The Glorious Revolution in England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Jacob, M. (2000). The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s. Kindle Edition.
• Kemp, G. (2012). The ‘End of Censorship’ and the Policies of Toleration, from Locke to Sacheverell. Parliamentary History 31(1), 47-68.
• Levy, L.W. (1995). Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie. Chapel Hill/London: The University of North Carolina Press.
• Linton, M. (2000). Citizenship and Religious Toleration in France. In: Grell, O.P. & Porter, R. (eds.). Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• MacCulloch, D. (2004). Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490-700. London, UK: Penguin.
• Musée protestant (n.d.). The period of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1661-1700). Retrieved from: https://www.museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-period-of-the-revocation-of-the-edict-of-nantes-1661-1700/
• Nadler, S. (2014, May 25). Judging Spinoza. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/judging-spinoza/
• Parker, G. (1977). The Dutch Revolt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Pettegree, A. (2009). The politics of toleration in the Free Netherlands, 1572-1620. In: Grell, O.P. (ed.). Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge University Press.
• Pollmann, J. (1999). Religious Choice in the Dutch Republic: The Reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
• Powers, E. (2011). Freedom of Speech: The History of an Idea. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press.
• Robertson, R. (2009). Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England: The Subtle Art of Division. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
• Sowersby, S. (2013). Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution. Harvard University Press.
• Tombs, R. (2015). The English and Their History. Kindle edition.
• Turchetti, M. (1991). Religious Concord and Political Tolerance in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France. The Sixteenth Century Journal 22(1), 15–25.
• Tyacke, N. (1991). The ‘Rise of Puritanism’ and the Legalizing of Dissent, 1571-1719. In: Grell, O.P., Israel, J., & Tyacke, N. (eds.). From Persecution to Tolerance: The Glorious Revolution in England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• van Bunge, (2009). Censorship of Philosophy in the Secenteenth-Century Dutch Republic”, in Lærke, M. (ed.): The Use of Censorship in the Enlightenment. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
• van der Wall, E. (2000). Toleration and Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic”. In: Grell, O.P. & Porter, R. (eds.): Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• van Eijnatten, J. (2003). Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
• van Groesen, M. (2016). Reading Newspapers in the Dutch Golden Age. Media History 22(3-4), 334-352.
• Zagorin, P. (2003). How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Primary literature

• Coornhert, D. (1582). Synod on the Freedom of Conscience. Retrieved from: http://www.oapen.org/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=http://www.oapen.org/document/340067
• Locke, J. (1689). A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings. Retrieved from: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/locke-a-letter-concerning-toleration-and-other-writings
• King Henry VI of France (1598, 30 April). The Edict of Nantes. Retrieved from: http://huguenotsweb.free.fr/english/edict_nantes.htm
• Philopatris (1679). A Just Vindication OF LEARNING: OR, An Humble Address to the High Court of PARLIAMENT In behalf of the Liberty of the Press. Retrieved from: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A28439.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
• Sidney, A. (1683, December 7). Speech on the Scaffold. Retrieved from: https://www.bartleby.com/268/3/14.html
• Spinoza, B. (1670). A Theologico-Political Treatise. Retrieved from: http://www.sacred-texts.com/phi/spinoza/treat/tpt02.htm
• The Union of Utrecht [treaty] (1579, 23 January). Retrieved from: https://www.constitution.org/cons/dutch/Union_Utrecht_1579.html

Baruch Spinoza (also known as Benedict de Spinoza) was born in Amsterdam in 1632. While his given name means “blessing” in both Hebrew and Latin, Spinoza’s “Theological-political treatise” from 1670 was condemned as “a book forged in hell.” Spinoza himself was denounced as a dangerous heretic or atheist by religious and secular rulers alike, and was pilloried in the court of public opinion.

Spinoza’s apparent crime consisted in systematically eroding the foundation of revealed religion and the authority of the Bible. But in addition to his materialist philosophy, Spinoza championed freedom of thought and expression as the precondition for social peace in a free democratic state. According to Spinoza, “The most tyrannical governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right over his thoughts” and therefore, “In a free state every man may think what he likes, and say what he thinks.” These were radical ideas in early modern Europe and too much to stomach for even the tolerant Dutch.

With me on this episode of Clear and Present Danger to explore Spinoza’s ideas on freedom of thought and expression is University of Wisconsin-Madison philosophy professor and Spinoza expert Steven Nadler. Nadler is the author of “Spinoza: A Life” and “A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age.”

In the episode we discuss issues including:

• Why the Dutch Republic was tolerant and liberal compared to most other states at the time
• Why Spinoza was excommunicated from the Portuguese-Jewish community of Amsterdam
• Why Spinoza’s ideas of religion shocked and outraged just about everyone
• Why Spinoza thought social peace depends on freedom of thought and expression
• Where Spinoza drew the line when it comes to free speech and religion

Bonus: Professor Nadler on Spinoza in New York Times: “Spinoza’s Vision of Freedom, and Ours” and “Judging Spinoza.”

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Americans are more supportive of free speech than anyother people. 95 % of Americans think it’s “very important” to be able tocriticize the government without censorship and 77% support the right to offendreligious feelings. But in 17^th Century colonial America,criticizing the government, officials or the laws was punishable as seditiouslibel and could result in the cropping of ears, whippings, boring of the tongueand jail time. Religious speech was also tightly controlled. Blasphemy waspunishable by death in several colonies and religious dissenters such asQuakers were viciously persecuted in Puritan New England. Despite the harshclimate of the 17^th century, the boundaries of political speech andreligious tolerance were significantly expanded.  In this episode we’llexplore:

• How the crime of seditious libel was exported to colonial America
• Why peddlers of “fake news” were seen as enemies of the state
• Why a Harvard student was whipped for blasphemy
• Why four Quakers were hanged in Boston and many more whipped, branded and jailed
• How colonies like Pennsylvania, Carolina and Maryland combined religious tolerance with laws against religious offense,
• HowRoger Williams´ ”Rogue Island” and West New Jersey adopted policies of radical religious toleration
• The dangers of mixing alcohol and politics in Maryland
• How William Penn promoted religious tolerance and political intolerance
• How the colonies operated a strict licensing regime to suppress printing
• HowJohn Wise protested taxation without representation and became “America’s First Great Democrat”

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Literature:

• Bejan, T.M. (2017): Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
• Brown, E.N. (2018, March 5): “$20 Fee for Porn Access Proposed in Rhode Island”. Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets, accessed 22 January, https://reason.com/blog/2018/03/05/20-fee-for-porn.
• Brown, R.D. (2007): “The Shifting Freedoms of the Press in the Eighteenth Century”, in: Armory, H. & Hall, D.D. (eds.): A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World. University of North Carolina Press.
• Corrigan, J. & Neal, L.S. (2010): Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History. University of North Carolina Press.
• Curtis, M.K. (1991): “In Pursuit of Liberty: The Levellers and the American Bill of Rights”. Constitutional Commentary, p. 801, 1991; Wake Forest Univ. Legal Studies Paper No. 956931.
• Curtis, M.K. (2000): Free Speech, “The People’s Darling Privilege”: Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History. Duke University Press.
• Deazley, R., Kretschmer, M. & Bently, L.(eds.): Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright. OpenBook Publishers.
• Eldridge, L. (1995): A Distant Heritage: The Growth of Free Speech in Early America. NYUPress. Kindle Edition.
• Hall, D.D. (2007): “The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century” and “Readers and Writers in Early New England”, in: Armory, H. & Hall, D.D. (eds.): A History of the Book in America, vol. 1: TheColonial Book in the Atlantic World. University of North Carolina Press.
• Harvard University: “Henry Dunster”, accessed 22 January 2019, https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance/history-presidency/henry-dunster.
• Juster, S. (2014): “Heretics, Blasphemers, and Sabbath Breakers:  The Prosecution of Religious Crime in Early America” in Beneke, C. & Grenda, C.S. (eds.) (2014): The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Kopan, T. (2013, October 10): “Student stopped from handing out Constitutions on Constitution Day sues”. Politico, accessed 22 January 2019, https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2013/10/student-stopped-from-handing-out-constitutions-on-constitution-day-sues-174792.
• Laskow, S. (2017, July 10): “The Hidden Rules of the Puritan Fashion Police”. Atlas Obscura, accessed 22 January 2019, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sumptuary-laws-puritan-fashion-colonies-modesty.
• Leff, L. (1990, April 28): “MD. Court Hearts Appeal of Oral Sex Conviction”. The Washington Post, accessed 22 January 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1990/04/28/md-court-hears-appeal-of-oral-sex-conviction/461dfed1-8669-4a5e-b0cc-2967c25f179c/?utm_term=.0208e444ed44.
• Levy, L.W. (1985): Emergence of a Free Press. Oxford University Press.
• Levy, L.W. (1995): Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie. University of North Carolina Press.
• Morgan, E.S. (1975): American slavery – American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
• Neal, L.S. & Corrigan, J. (2010): Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History. The University of North Carolina Press.
• New England Historical Society: “Harvard Student Beaten in 1674, President Takes Fall”, accessed 22 January 2019, http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/harvard-student-beaten-1674-president-takes-fall/.
• Rossiter, C.L. (1949): “John Wise: Colonial Democrat”. The New England Quarterly 22(1). pp. 3–32.
• Smolenski, J. (2001): “William Bradford”. In: Derek, J. (ed.): Censorship: A World Encyclopedia. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
• Solomon, S.D. (2016): Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech. St. Martin’s Press.Kindle Edition.
• Taylor, A. (2002): American colonies: The Settling of North America, Vol. 1. Penguin Books.

Primary literature

• “Act for Free Conscience (Pennsylvania)”, 1682. Online Library of Liberty, accessed 22 January 2019, https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1682-act-for-freedom-of-conscience-penn.
• “Acts and Orders (Rhode Island)”, 1647. Online Library of Liberty, accessed 22 January 2019, https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1647-acts-and-orders-rhode-island.
• Alice Morse Earle, “Curious punishments of bygone days”, 1896. Chicago: H. S. Stone & company, 1896. Hathi Trust Digital Library, accessed 22 January 2019, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003338145.
• “Charter of the Liberties and Frame ofGovernment of Pennsylvania”, 1682. Online Library of Liberty, accessed 22 January 2019, https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1682-charter-of-the-liberties-and-frame-of-government-of-pennsylvania.
• “Charter of Liberties and Privileges (New York)”, 1683. Online Library of Liberty, accessed 22 January 2019, https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1683-charter-of-liberties-and-privileges-new-york.
• “Facts and Case Summary – Snyder v. Phelps”, 2 March 2011. United States Courts, accessed 22 January 2019, http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-snyder-v-phelps.
• “Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, from the organization to the termination of the proprietary government”, 10 March 1683 – 27 September 1775. Hathi Trust Digital Library, accessed 22 January 2019, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007821310.
• “Parliamentary Patent”, 1643. Rhode Island State Archives, accessed 22 January 2019, http://sos.ri.gov/assets/downloads/documents/Parliamentary-Patent.pdf. 
• Sir Edward Coke, Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, vol. I. [1600]. Steve Shepherd, ed., accessed 22 January 2019, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/coke-selected-writings-of-sir-edward-coke-vol-i–5.
  
• “The Charter of Fundamental Laws, of West New Jersey, Agreed Upon”, 1676. The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, accessed 22 January 2019, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nj05.asp. 
• “The Declaration of the Reasons and Motives for the Present Appearing in Arms of Their Majesties Protestant Subjects in the Province of Maryland” , 1689, C.M. Andrews, ed.. Hathi Trust Digital Library, accessed 22 January 2019, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000364102.
• ”The Social System of Virginia”, 1848. Making of America Journal Articles 14(2), 65-81, accessed 22 January 2019, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/acf2679.0014.002/76:1?page=root;size=100;view=text.
• Thomas Jefferson, Writings (New York: Viking Press, 1984), 283, quoted in L.S. Neal & J. Corrigan, Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History (The University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

In the 16^th Century Spain and Portugal globalized the inquisition by spreading the fight for religious orthodoxy and against heresy, blasphemy and apostasy to the Americas, Africa and Asia allowing inquisitors to pry into the souls of men on five continents. In Episode 17 we try to answer questions such as:

• How many people were affected by the inquisition?
• What were the consequences for native Americans?
• What were the similarities and differences between inquisition in Europe and the different colonies?
• What where the links between inquisition, racism and anti-semitism?
• How did the inquisition stop the spread of books and information?
• Why and when did the inquisition end?

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Literature:

• Barnadas, J.M. (1984): “The Catholic church in colonial Spanish America” in Bethell, L (ed.): The Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 1: Colonial Latin America. Cambridge University Press.
• Bethencourt, F. (2009): The Inquisition: A Global History 1478–1834. Cambridge University Press.
• Carvajal, F.G. (2003): Butterflies will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomies in Early Modern Spain and Mexico. University of Texas Press.
• Cohen, M.A. (1973): The Martyr: The Story of a Secret Jew and the Mexican Inquisition in the Sixteenth Century. The Jewish Publication Society of America.
• da Silva, A.C.S. (2014): Books and Periodicals in Brazil 1768-1930. Routledge.
• e Souza, L.d.M. (2003): The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery, and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil (trans. by D.G. Whitty). University of Texas Press.
• Febvre, L. & Martin, H.-J. (1976): The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. NLB.
• Glaser, E. (1956): “Invitation to Intolerance: A stury of the Portuguese sermons preached at autos-da-fé” in: Hebrew Union College Annual 27, pp. 327–385.
• Hoornaert, E. (1984): “The Catholic church in colonial Brazil” in Bethell, L (ed.): “The Catholic Church in Colonial Spanish America” in: The Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 1: Colonial Latin America. Cambridge University Press.
• Johnson, H.B. (1984): “The Portuguese Settlement of Brazil, 1500-1580” in Bethell, L (ed.): The Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 1: Colonial Latin America. Cambridge University Press.
• Kamen, H.  (2014): The Spanish Inquisition – A Historical Revision, 4th edition. Yale University Press,
• Lea, H. C. (1922): The inquisition in the Spanish dependencies : Silicy, Naples, Sardinia, Milan, the Canaries, Mexico, Peru, New Granada. New York, The Macmillan company; London : Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
• MacCulloch, D. (2009): Christianity – The First Three Thousand Years. Viking.
• Murphy, C. (2013): God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Mariner Books.
• Nesvig, M.A. (2009): Ideology and Inquisition: The World of the Censors in Early Mexico. Yale University Press.
• Paiva, J.P. (2017): “The Inquisition Tribunal in Goa: Why and for What Purpose?” in: Modern History 21 pp. 565-593.
• Santos, V.S. (2012): “Africans, Afro-Brazilians and Afro-Portuguese in the Iberian Inquisition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, African and Black Diaspora” in: An International Journal 5 (1), pp. 49–63.
• Saraiva, A.J. (2001): Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and its New Christians 1536-1765. BRILL.
• Scholes, F.V. (1935): “The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico” in: New Mexico Historical Review 10(3).
• Scholes, F.V. (1937): “Church and State in New Mexico, 1610-1650” in: New Mexico Historical Review 11(1).
• Schorsch, J. (2009: Swimming the Christian Atlantic: Judeoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the Seventeenth Century. BRILL.
• Sweet, J. H. (2013): Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. The University of North Carolina Press
• Taylor, A. (2002): American Colonies: The Settling of North America, vol. 1. Penguin Books.
• Vose, R. (2013): “Beyond Brazil: Inquisition History in a Global Context” in: History Compass 11(4), pp. 316-329.
• Wadsworth, J.E. (2010): “Historiography of the Structure and Functioning of the Portuguese Inquisition in Colonial Brazil” in: History Compass 8(7), pp. 636–652.
• Walker, T. (2004): ”Sorcerers and Folkhealers: Africans and the Inquisition in Portugal (1680-1800)” in:Revista Lusófona de Ciência das Religiões 3 (5), pp. 83–98.
• Werner, M. (2001): Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico. Routledge.

• Berger, J. (January 1st 2017): “A secret Jew, The New World, a lost book: Mystery Solved”. The New York Times. Accessible at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/arts/a-secret-jew-the-new-world-a-lost-book-mystery-solved.html.
• Las Casas, B. (2007): A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Project Gutenberg EBook 2007, pp. 9-16. The American Yawp Reader. English translation accessible at:https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-new-world/bartolome-de-las-casas-describes-the-exploitation-of-indigenous-peoples-1542/.
• Pope Alexander VI’s Demarcation Bull Granting Spain Possession of Lands Discovered by Columbus. English translation accessible at: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/T-04093.pdf.

In this episode, we join up with historian of science Dr. Michael Shermer to investigate the cross-fertilization between science and free speech.

Michael Shermer is a prolific writer on science, philosophy and morality and has appeared in numerous documentaries, talk shows, and TED talks.

Among the topics discussed are:

• When did scientific freedom make its decisive breakthrough?
• What comes first: Science or free inquiry?
• How did both Islam and Christianity affect science?
• What is the relationship between science and free speech as such?
• Can science be used to suppress free speech?
• How did Benjamin Franklin infuse the Declaration of Independence with Newtonian science?

Dr. Michael Shermer is a Historian of science, Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, founder of Skeptic Society and the Skeptic Magazine and author of Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality & Utopia, Why People Believe Weird Things, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, and The Moral Arc.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Episode 15 returns to Europe and formative events in 17th Century England, where a mostly forgotten group of radicals demanded a written constitution guaranteeing free speech, liberty of conscience, and democracy. But who were the Levellers? What was the historical context of their radical demands and why were they ultimately crushed by former allies?

Listen and find the answers to such questions as:

• Who was the first English author to demand full religious toleration for both heretics and non-Christians?
• Why did Charles I and Archbishop Laud cut off the ears of dissenting Puritans?
• What happens when you try to impose alien religious ceremonies on proud and devout Scots?
• Why was censorship abolished in 1641 and what were the consequences?
• What happened at the Putney Debates?
• How radical were the Levellers’ demands for free speech and liberty of conscience?
• Did John Milton really become a censor himself?

• Why did traditionalists refer to pamphlets and books as “paper-bullets?”

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Literature: Episode 15

• Clegg, C.S. (2008): Press Censorship in Caroline England. Cambridge University Press.
• Curtis, M.K. (1991): “In Pursuit of Liberty: The Levellers and the American Bill of Rights” in: Constitutional Commentary, Wake Forest Univversity Legal Studies Paper 956931, p. 801.
• Curtis, M.K. (2000): The People’s Darling Privilege: Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History (Constitutional Conflicts). Duke University Press Books.
• Davis, J.C. (1992): “Religion and the Struggle for Freedom in the English Revolution” in: The Historical Journal 35(3). pp. 507–530.
• Early, T.E. (2009): The Life and Writings of Thomas Helwys (Early English Baptist Texts). Mercer University Press.
• Foxley, R. (2013): The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the English Revolution. Manchester University Press.
• Hargreaves, R. (2003): The First Freedom: A History of Free Speech. Sutton Publishing.
• Hill, C. (1984): The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin Books.
• Kishlansky, M.A. (1979): “The Army and the Levellers: The Roads to Putney” in: The Historical Journal 22(4). Pp. 795–824.
• Levy, L.W. (1985): Emergence of a Free Press. Oxford University Press.
• Levy, L.W. (1995): Blasphemy: Verbal Offences Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie. The University of North Carolina Press.
• Levy, L.W. (1999): “Freedom of Speech in Seventeenth-Century Thought” in: The Antioch Review 57(2). Pp. 165–177.
• Raymond, J. (2006): Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History). Cambridge University Press.
• Peacey, J. (2000): ”John Lilburne and the Long Parliament” in: The Historical Journal 43(3). pp. 625–645.
• Robertson, R. (2009): Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England – The Subtle Art of Division. Penn State University Press.
• Taylor, D. (2011): l’Estrange His Life: Public and Persona in the Life and Career of Sir Roger l’Estrange, 1616–1704. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Kansas.
• Woodford, B. (2014): “Developments and Debates in English Censorship During the Interregnum” in: Early Modern Literary Studies 17(2).

Online literature

• BBC – Al-Qaeda material bride Ruksana Begum jailed – 6.12.12: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-20629275
• BCW Project – British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Projectorate 1638–1660: “England’s Lamentable Slaverie.” Accessible at: http://bcw-project.org/texts/englands-lamentable-slaverie.
• BCW Project – British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Projectorate 1638–1660: ”William Walwyn, c. 1600–81”. Accessible at: http://bcw-project.org/biography/william-walwyn.
• British History Online: ”June 1643: An Ordinance for the Regulating of Printing”. Accessible at: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp184-186.
• British History Online: “May 1648: An Ordinance for the punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies, with the several penalties therein expressed.” Accessible at: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp1133-1136.
• BuzzFeed – The UK Government Is Planning To Set Up A Regulator For The Internet – 20.09.2018 –  https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/uk-government-regulator-internet
• Evening Standard – South Yorkshire Police relentlessly mocked after urging people to report one another for ‘offensive or insulting words’ – 10.09.2018: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/south-yorkshire-police-relentlessly-mocked-after-urging-people-to-report-one-another-for-offensive-a3932131.html
• Jeremy Norman’s History of Information. ”A Decree of the Star Chamber Concerning Printing July 11, 1637”. Accessible at: http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=3899.
• National Library of Scotland. ”The Stoneyfield Sabbath Day”. Accessible at: https://www.digital.nls.uk/scotlandspages/timeline/1637.html.
• Online Library of Liberty: “The English Revolution”. Accessible at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/groups/68.
• ”James I and the Divine Right of Kings” & ”Charles I rules without Parliament”. Accessible at: http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/chap4002.html.
• Parliament.uk – Make tech companies liable for use of “harmful and misleading material” on their sites – 29.07.2018: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/fake-news-report-published/
• Randy Robertson’s British Index 1641 – 1700 https://www.academia.edu/372922/Prefatory_Note_to_The_British_Index_1641-1700
• The Times – Police arresting nine people a day in fight against web trolls – 12.10.207 – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d

Great podcasts covering the subject of this episode

• BBC 4: In Our Time. Episode: “The Putney Debates”. Accessible at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rw1k7.
• Mike Duncan: Revolutions. Episodes 1.1–1.16. Accessible at: http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/.

Episode 14 leaves the West and heads to 16th and 17th Century India and the Mughal empire. In particular, the rule of Akbar the Great.

A century before John Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” Akbar developed a policy of “Universal Peace” repudiating religious compulsion and embracing ecumenical debate. We’ll also discover why the history of the Mughal empire still tests the limits of free speech and tolerance in modern India. Among the questions tackled are:

• Why, how, and to what extent did Akbar abandon orthodox Islam for religious tolerance?
• How did religious tolerance in the Mughal empire compare to contemporary Europe?
• How did English travelers get away with openly blaspheming Muhammad, the Quran, and Allah?
• Was the emperor Aurangzeb really the uniquely intolerant villain that history has portrayed him as?
• Why do India’s current laws against religious insults hamper modern historians’ efforts at documenting events during the Mughal empire?

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Literature: Episode 14

• Beveridge, A.S. (1922): The Babur-nama in English (memoirs of Babur) – Translated from the original Turki Text by Zahiru’d-din Muhammad Babur Padshah Ghazi. London, UK: Luzac & Co.
• Chandra, S. (1992): “Akbar’s Concept of Sulh-Kul, Tulsi’s Concept of Maryada and Dadu’s Concept of Nipakh: A Comparative Study” in: Social Scientist 20 (9/10) (Sep. – Oct., 1992), pp. 31-37.
• Fernée, T.G. (2014): Enlightenment and Violence: Modernity and Nation-Making. SAGE Publications.
• Hadi, N. (1960): “’Universal Peace’ (Sulh-i-Kul) and the Role of the Mughal Poets” in: Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 23 pp. 256–57.
• Koch, E. (2002): “The Intellectual and Artistic Climate at Akbar’s Court” in Seyller, J.W. (ed.): The adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India. Freer Gallery of Art.
• Koch, E. (2012): “How the Mughal padshahs referenced Iran in their visual construction of universal rule” in Bang, P.F. & Kołodziejczyk, D. (eds.): Universal Empire. Cambridge University Press.
• Richards, J.F. (1996): The Mughal Empire (The New Cambridge History of India). Cambridge University Press.
• Sapra, R. (2003): “A Peaceable Kingdom in the East: Favourable Early Seventeenth-Century Representations of the Moghul Empire” in: Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, New Series / Nouvelle Série, 27(3) (sumer 2003), pp. 5-36.
• Truschke, A. (2017): Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Controversial King. Stanford University Press.
• Wink, A. (2009): Akbar. Oxford, UK: Oxford One World.

Online literature and podcasts

• Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC-India) (8 May 2017): Print Media is Growing [press release]. Accessible at http://www.auditbureau.org/news/view/53.
• Freedom House (2017): Freedom of the Press 2017: India. Accessible at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/india.
• Gettleman, J. (6 September 2018): India Gay Sex Ban Is Struck Down. ‘Indefensible,’ Court Says. The New York Times. Accessible at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/world/asia/india-gay-sex-377.html.
• Gowen, A. (7 September 2018) The shadowy extremist sect accused of plotting to kill intellectuals in India. The Washington Post. Accessible at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/the-shadowy-extremist-sect-accused-of-plotting-to-kill-intellectuals-in-india/2018/09/06/d7f78514-a66a-11e8-ad6f-080770dcddc2_story.html?utm_term=.151ecde6cadc.
• Hedge, S. (7 Septebmer 2018). Is Punjab’s proposed blasphemy law retrograde? The Hindu. Accessible at: https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/is-punjabs-proposed-blasphemy-law-retrograde/article24887231.ece.
• India.gov.in: Constitution of India. Accessible at: https://www.india.gov.in/my-government/constitution-india/constitution-india-full-text.
• Library of Congress (10 April 2017): State Anti-conversion Laws in India. Accessible at https://www.loc.gov/law/help/anti-conversion-laws/india.php.
• Press Trust of India (2 January 2015): Case lodged against ‘PK’ actor Aamir Khan, director Raju Hirani and producer in Rajasthan. The Indian Express. Accessible at: https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/case-lodged-against-pk-actor-aamir-khan-director-raju-hirani-and-producer-in-rajasthan/.
• Truschke, A. (27 July 2017): Censoring Indian History: Laws against religious offence in India have altered the writing and understanding of the nation’s past. History Today. Accessible at: https://www.historytoday.com/audrey-truschke/censoring-indian-history.
• BBC Radio 4 – In Our Time: The Mughal Empire. Accessible at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y27h.

In this episode, we do a bit of time travel and leave the 17^th century for a discussion of free speech on American college and university campuses today.

Our guest is New York University professor Jonathan Haidt, who is a co-author with FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff of “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure,” which is already among Amazon’s top 20 bestselling books.

But in looking at the present challenges to free speech on campus, we do also try to draw parallels with older controversies in order to determine whether the psychological mechanisms at play are similar.

Among the topics discussed are:

• Is there really a “free speech crisis” among American students?
• The three “Great Untruths” challenging the idea of free speech
• The mental health crisis affecting students’ ability to handle adversity and disagreement
• The role of social media
• Why students’ efforts to shut down speakers at American universities is related to the millennia-old idea of blasphemy
• What drives tribalism old and new?
• Whether we should think of words as a form of violence
• How do we overcome the temptation to reenact the inquisition?

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and the author of the New York Times Bestseller “The Righteous Mind.” Among a dizzying range of activities, Haidt is also the co-founder of Heterodox Academy, a large and growing group of professors and students who disagree on many things but are united in their mission to increase viewpoint diversity at American universities.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

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Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

We enter the early modern age with an expert opinion featuring Teresa Bejan, associate professor at Oriel College, Oxford University and author of “Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration.” In this episode, Jacob and Teresa will discuss political thought on tolerance and the limits of religious speech in early modern England and colonial America. The episode investigates the writings of intellectual rock stars John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke and the less famous but hugely relevant Roger Williams.

Among the topics discussed are:

• Milton’s “Areopagitica”
• Early colonial religious “hate speech” laws
• Why Hobbes found “the mere fact of disagreement offensive”
• The origin, development, and limits of Lockean tolerance
• Williams’s combination of fundamentalist evangelical intolerance and free speech fundamentalism
• Why political theory and practice of the 17^th century is relevant to modern day controversies on free speech

Bejan is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. She is the author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration.

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In episode 11 we continue to survey the wreckage after hurricane Luther was unleashed on Europe with the Reformation. When the Reformation mutated and spread across the continent a burning question arose: Can people of different faiths live together in the same state? Should social peace be based on tolerance or intolerance? We look into questions such as

• How did other Protestant reformers like Calvin and Zwingli react to religious dissent?
• In what manner did English and continental censorship laws differ?
• How did the Catholic Church react to the Reformation?
• Which states were the first state to formalize religious tolerance?
• How did the scientific and philosophical ideas of Galileo and Giordano Bruno conflict with the religious monopoly on truth and what where the repercussions?

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

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Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Literature: Episode 11

• Balázs, M., Gellérd, J. & Cooper, T. (2013): “Tolerant Country – Misunderstood Laws. Interpreting Sixteenth-Century Transylvanian Legislation Concerning Religion”. The Hungarian Historical Review 2(1), pp. 85-108.
• Bejan, T. (2009). Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
• Benedict, P. (1997): “Un roi, une loi, deux fois: parameters for the history of Catholic-Reformed co-existence in France, 1555-1685” in: Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Caravale, G. (2017): ”Jacobus Acontius: From Trent to Satan’s Stratagems (1565)” in: Censorship and Heresy in Revolutionary England and Counter-Reformation Rome.
• Castellio, S. (1553): Concerning Heretics : Whether they are to be persecuted and how they are to be treated : A collection of opinions of learned men both ancient and modern. Accessible at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;view=toc;idno=heb05981.0001.001.
• Castellione, S. (1960): Fede, dubbio e· tolleranza, pagine scelte e tradotte. Radetti, G. (ed.), Florence 1960, 61; Prosperi, ‘Il grano e la zizzania’, 74.
• Clegg, C.S. (2005): “Censorship and the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission in England to 1640” in: Journal of Modern European 3(1), Censorship in Early Modern Europe, pp. 50-80. Verlag C.H.Beck Stable.
• Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures. McFarland.
• Collinson, P. (2003): The Reformation. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
• Davies, N. (1997): Europe : A History. London, UK: Pimlico.
• Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.) (1996): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Grendler, P.F. (1988): “Printing and censorship” in Schmitt, C.B. (ed.): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Hahn, S.W. & Wiker, B. (2013): Politicizing the Bible : The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700. Herder & Herder Books.
• Helm, J. (2015): Poetry and Censorship in the Counter-Reformation. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
• Ingegno, A. (1988): “The New Philosophy of Nature” in: Schmitt, C.B. (ed.): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Koch, C.H. (2007): Den Europæiske Filosofis Historie (Danish). Viborg, DK: Nyt Nordisk Forlag Arnold Busck.
• Levy, L. (1993): Blasphemy : Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, From Moses to Salman Rushdie. The University of North Carolina Press.
• Loades, D.M. (1964): “The Press under the Early Tudors: A Study in Censorship and Sedition” in: Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4(1) pp. 29-50.
• Loades, D.M. (1974): “The Theory and Practice of Censorship in Sixteenth-Century England” in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 24. pp. 141–157.
• MacCulloch, D. (2004): Reformation : Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700. New York, NY: Viking Penguin Penguin.
• MacCulloch, D. (2010): Christianity : The First Three Thousand Years. New York, NY: Viking Penguin.
• Martinez, A. (2016): “Giordano Bruno and heresy of many worlds” in: Annals of Science 73(4), pp. 345-374.
• Martinez, A. (2018): Burned Alive : Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition. Reaktion Books.
• Marshal, P. (2009): The Reformation : A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Murphy, C. (2012): God’s Jury : The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Müller, M.G. (1997) “Protestant confessionalisation in the towns of Royal Prussia and the practice of religious toleration in Poland-Lithuania” in Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Parker, G. (1977) The Dutch Revolt. Cornell University Press.
• Pettegree, A. (1997): “The politics of toleration in the Free Netherlands, 1572–1620” in Grell, O.P. and Scribner, B. (eds.): Tolerance and intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Schmitt, C.B. (ed.) (1988): The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Shuger, D. (2006): Censorship and Cultural Sensibility: The Regulation of Language in Tudor-Stuart England. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Skinner, Q. (1978): The Foundation of Modern Political Thought. Cambridge University Press.
• Steiman, L. (1997): Paths to Genocide: Antisemitism in Western History. Palgrave Schol, Print UK.
• Stone, D.Z. (2014): The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795. University of Washington Press.
• Woltjer, J. (2007): “Public Opinion and the Persecution of Heretics in the Netherlands, 1550-59” in Pollman et al. (eds.): Public Opinion and Changing Identities in the Early Modern Netherlands.
• Zweig, S. (1979): Erasmus : The Right to Heresy (transl. by Eden and Cedar Paul). London, UK: Souvenir Press.

Online literature and articles

• Collinson, P.: John Foxe as Historian. John Foxe’s The Acts and Monuments Online. Accessible at https://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm=more&gototype=&type=essay&book=essay3.
• Encyclopædia Britannica (July 20, 2017): Michael Servetus. Accessible at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Servetus.
• Hudson, A. (September 28, 2016): The Book Banner Who Inspired Banned Books. British Library. Accessible at http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2016/09/utopias-and-banned-books.html.
• Knox, D. (May 30, 2018): Giordano Bruno. Zalta E. N.(ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition). Accessible at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bruno/.
• UNESCO: The Confederation of Warsaw of 28th of January 1573: Religious tolerance guaranteed. Accessible at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-8/the-confederation-of-warsaw-of-28th-of-january-1573-religious-tolerance-guaranteed/.

Our last stop in the Middle Ages is an interview with professor Christine Caldwell Ames, who is an expert on medieval heresy and inquisition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The discussion highlights the similarities and differences between Christianity, Catholic and Orthodox, Judaism, and Islam when it comes to defining and policing orthodoxy.

Among the topics discussed are:

• Was the Medieval Inquisition motivated by worldly power or religious zeal?
• What effect did the Medieval Inquisition have on ordinary people and local communities?
• Why has the Spanish Inquisition become so infamous?
• Was Islamic Spain a haven of religious tolerance compared to the Latin West?  
• Are inquisitions a thing of the past or still relevant in the 21st century?

And much, much more.

Professor Ames is a department chair at the University of South Carolina, as well as the author of “Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam” and “Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans, and Christianity in the Middle Ages.” Ames has an MA in Church History from Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Medieval History from the University of Notre Dame.

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In our first expert opinion segment, Jacob Mchangama talks to Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University Paul Cartledge. With his intimate knowledge of ancient Greece, we dive deeper into the concepts of free speech and democracy in Athens that were discussed in episode one.

What are the differences between free speech in the Athenian democracy and free speech in a modern liberal democracy? What limits did religion set for Athenian free speech? Was Plato a totalitarian? And was the trial of Socrates mostly religious or political?

The discussion also explores the differences between Athens and republican Rome, why free speech was alien to Sparta, and the rather condescending attitudes of the American Founding Fathers toward Athenian democracy (shame on you for defaming Pericles, Alexander Hamilton!).

Cartledge has written extensively on ancient Athens. His authorship includes among many titles, the critically acclaimed “Democracy: A Life” and “Ancient Greek Political Thought In Practice.”

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Why did the polytheist Ancient Romans persecute the followers of the new Jewish sect of “Christians” in the first three centuries AD”? How high was the price that Christians had to pay for casting away their ancient religious traditions for the belief in salvation through Jesus Christ? Did Roman Emperor Constantine end religious intolerance with the Edict of Milan? And why did the Christians persecute the pagans – and each other – once Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire? Why were temples and libraries destroyed and the female mathematician Hypatia killed by violent mobs? And did Emperor Justinian really end antiquity when he closed the Academy in Athens? Find out when we discover how religious persecution and violence impacted lives, learning, and liberty of conscience in the period from the trial of Jesus to the age of Justinian. The Age of Persecution. That’s episode 3 of Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech.

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Literature: Episode 3

Early Christianity and persecution of Christians from Nero to Diocletian

• Barnes, T.D. (1968): ”Legislation against the Christians”. In: The Journal of Roman Studies 58(1-2). Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Pp. 32–50.
• Beard, M. (2015): SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. London, UK: Profile Books.
• Bury, J.B. (2015): A History of The Dark Ages: From the Triumph of Constantine to the Empire of Charlemagne. Didactic Press.
• Chadwick, H. (2003): The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Davies, N. (1997): ”III: Roma”. In: Europe – A history. London, UK: Pimlico.
• De Ste. Croix, G.E.M. (2006). In: Streeter, J. & Whitby, M. (eds.): Christian Persecution, Matyrdom, and Orthodoxy. Oxford, UK: Oxford Scholarship Online.
• Digeser, E. (2012): A Threat To Public Piety – Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Frend, W.H.C. (2008): Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church – A Study of Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co.
• Gibbon, E. (2013): The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 15–16. Modern Library. (First published 1776).
• Grégoire, H. (1952): ”Les persécutions dans l’Empire romain”. In: Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, 30(3–4). Pp. 943–945.
• Levy, L.W. (1992): Blasphemy – Verbal Offense against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
• MacCulloch, D. (2010): A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. London, UK: Penguin.
• Mason, A.J. (2017): The Historic Martyrs of the Primitive Church. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
• O’Donnell, J.J. (2016): Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity. New York, NY: Ecco.
• Phipps, C.B. (1932): ”Persecution under Marcus Aurelius. An Historical Hypothesis”. In: Hermathena 22(47). Trinity College Dublin. Pp. 167–201.
• Praet, D. (2014): ”Violence against Christians and Violence by Christians in the First Three Centuries: Direct Violence, Cultural Violence and the Debate about Christian Exclusivness”. In: Gelion, A. & Roukema, R. (eds.): Violence in Ancient Christianity. Brill.
• Rivers, J.B. (1999): ”The Decree of Decius and the Religion of Empire” in: The Journal of Roman Studies 89. Pp. 135–154.
• Rohmann, Dirk (2016): ”Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity. In: Studies in Text Transmission Berlin: De Gruyter. Pp. xi–360.
• Sherwin-White, A.N. (1964): ”Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted? — An Amendment” in: Past & Present 27. Pp. 23-27. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Contemporary sources

• Davis, W.S. (Ed.) (1912-1913). ”Certificate of Having Sacrificed to the Gods, 250 CE”. In:
• Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, vol. II, Rome and the West. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Pp. 289. Accessible at: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/250sacrificecert.asp.
• Eusebius (263–339 AD): The History of the Church (Ecclesiastical History). Book V: From Marcus Aurelius to Severus. Translated by G.A. Williason. Dorset Press. Accessible at: http://pages.swcp.com/~vogs/eusebius.html.
• Galerius & Constantine (311/313 AD): Edicts of Toleration. Accessible at: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/edict-milan.asp.
• Pliny the Younger (61/62–113 AD): Persecution of the Christians. Accessible at: http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/xtians.html, including Trajan’s replies.
• Procopius of Caesarea (500–565 AD): The Secret History. (Transl. by Richard Atwater). Chicago, IL: P. Covici, 1927; New York, NY: Covici Friede, 1927. Accessible at: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/procop-anec.asp.
• Suetonius (c. 69–122 AD): Life of the Emperor Claudius. Ch. 25. Accessible at: http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/xtians.html.
• Suetonius (c. 69–122 AD): Life of the Emperor Nero. 16. Accessible at: http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/xtians.html.
• Tacitus (c. 55–117 AD): Annals. Book 15, chapter 47. Accessible at: http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/xtians.html.

Persecution of pagans and heretics from Constantine to Justitian

• Brown, P. (1964): “St. Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion” in: The Journal of Roman Studies 54(1-2). Pp. 107-116.
• De Ste. Croix, G.E.M. (2006): ”Heresy, Schism and Persecution in the Later Roman Empire” in: Streeter, J. & Whitby, M. (eds.): Christian Persecution, Matyrdom, and Orthodoxy. Oxford Scholarship Online.
• El-Abbadi, M. & Fathallah, O. (Eds.) (2008): What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?
• Gaddis, M. (2015): There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
• Gibbon, E. (2013): The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Modern Library. (First published 1776).
• Hannam, J. (2010): ”The Mysterious Fate of the Great Library of Alexandria”. In: God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. Accessible at: http://jameshannam.com/library.htm.
• Konstantinos, S.S. (2007): The History of the Library in Western Civilization vol. V: From Petrarch to Michelangelo: The Revival of the Study of the Classics and the First Humanistic Libraries Printing in the Service of the World of Books and Monumental Libraries. Brill.
• Levy, L.W. (1992): Blasphemy – Verbal Offense against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
• MacCulloch, D. (2010): A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. London, UK: Penguin.
• MacMullen, R. (1986): Christianizing the Roman Empire (A.D. 100-400). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Nixey, C. (2017): The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.
• Rohmann, Dirk (2016): ”Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity. In: Studies in Text Transmission Berlin: De Gruyter. Pp. xi-360.
• Sizgorich, T. (2009): Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Stark, R. (2016): Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.
• van Geest, P. (1964): ”Quid dicam de vindicando vel non vindicando? Augustine’s Legitimation of Coercion in his Roles of Mediator, Judge, Teacher and Mystagogue” in:
• Geljon, A.C. & Roukema, R. (eds.): Violence in Ancient Christianity; Victims and Perpetrators. Brill.

Contemporary sources on the death of Hypatia

• Collection accessible at: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/hypatia.html.

Justinian and the Byzantine Empire

• Blume Novels & Justinian Code Translation: Novel 77. Accessible at: http://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/_files/docs/novel61-80/novel61-80.htm.
• Brewer, C. (2005): “The Status of the Jews in Roman Legislation: The Reign of Justinian 527-565 CE”. In: European Judaism 51. Pp. 127–139.
• Constantelos, D.J. (1964): ”Paganism and the State in the Age of Justinian”. In: The Catholic Histrical Review 50(3). Pp. 372–380.
• Corcoran, S. (2009): ”Anastasius, Justinian, and the Pagans: A Tale of Two Law Codes and a Papyrus”. In: Journal of Late Antiquity 2(2).
• Rohmann, Dirk (2016): ”Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity. In: Studies in Text Transmission Berlin: De Gruyter. Pp. xi–360.
• Watts, E. (2004): ”Justinian, Malalas, and the End of Athenian Philosophical Teaching in A.D. 529”. In: The Journal of Roman Studies 94. Pp. 168–182.

Great podcasts on Roman and Byzantine history

• Mike Duncan: The History of Rome. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-rome/id261654474?mt=2.
• Robin Pierson: The History of Byzantium. https://itunes.apple.com/dk/podcast/the-history-of-byzantium/id527579475?l=da&mt=2.
• Lars Brownsword: 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire. https://itunes.apple.com/dk/podcast/12-byzantine-rulers-the-history-of-the-byzantine-empire/id73802687?l=da&mt=2.

Rome was the most powerful empire in antiquity. But were the Romans free to speak truth to power? Did history’s first successful Women’s March take place in Rome? And who came out on top when the words of Cicero clashed with the ambition of Caesar and armies of Octavian? Why did historians and astrologers become endangered species when the Republic became an empire? Find out in episode 2 of “Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech”.

You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.

Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Literature: Episode 2

General Roman history

• Beard, M. (2015): Chapter 4: SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome. London, UK: Profile Books.
• Davies, N. (1997): ”III. Roma: Ancient Rome, 753 BC-AD 337” in: Europe: A history. London, UK: Pimlico.
• Livy: History of Rome. Accessible at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/livy-the-history-of-rome-by-titus-livius-in-6-vols.
• Momigliano, A. (1974): ”Freedom of Speech in Antiquity” in: Wiener, P.P. (ed.): Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Accessible at: http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=DicHist/uvaGenText/tei/DicHist2.xml;chunk.id=dv2-31;toc.depth=1;toc.id=dv2-31;brand=default.
• Robertson, J.M. (1915): A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern. Ed. London, UK: Watts & Co. Chapter 6.
• Rowe, C., Schofield, M., Harrison, S. & Lane, M. (eds.) (2008): The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Roman society, Roman law and the political system

• The Laws of the Twelve Tables. Accessible at: https://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/12tables.html.
• Beard, M. (2015): Chapter 4: ”Rome’s Great Leap Forward” in: SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome. London, UK: Profile Books.
• Davies, N. (1997): ”III. Roma: Ancient Rome, 753 BC-AD 337” in: Europe: A history. London, UK: Pimlico.
• Larsen, J.A.O. (1955): Representative Government in Greek and Roman History. Oakland, CA: Berkeley University of California Press.
• Livy: History of Rome. III, book 25. Accessible at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/livy-the-history-of-rome-by-titus-livius-in-6-vols.
• Mouritsen, H. (2017): Chapter 1: ”Senatus Populusque Romanus” in: Politics in the Roman Republic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 6-53.
• O’Donnel, J. (2016): Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity. New York, US: HarperCollins
• Polybius: Rome at the End of the Punic Wars. Book 6. Accessible at: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/ANCIENT/polybius6.asp.

Libertas and Licentia

• Braund, S.M. (2004): ”Libertas or Licentia? Freedom and Criticism in Roman Satire” in: Sluiter, I. and Rosen, R. (eds.): Free Speech in Classical Antiquity. Boston, MA:
• Chrissanthos, S. (2004): ”Freedom of Speech and the Roman Republican Army” in: Sluiter, I. and Rosen, R. (eds.): Free Speech in Classical Antiquity. Boston, MA:
• Mallam, C. (ed.) (2016): Parrhesia in Dio’s Roman History.
• Wirszubski, C.H. (2009): Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Arena, V. (2012): Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

The Late Republic and the Decline of the Republic: The Gracchi, Cicero, Cato and Caesar

• Beard, M. (2015): SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome. Profile Books. Chapters 1, 6 and 7. London, UK: Profile Books.
• Brunt, P.A. (1988): The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays. Clarendon Press. Chapters 1 and 6.
• Cassius Dio: Roman History. Book 43:10, 45:18 and 45:26. Accessible at: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/cassius_dio/home.html.
• Cicero, M.: Brutus, A History of Famous Orators. Accessible at: http://www.attalus.org/old/brutus1.html.
• Cicero, M.: Pro Flacco. Accessible at: http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=LatinAugust2012&query=Cic.%20Flac.&getid=1.
• Everitt, A. (2006): Augustus: The Life of Rome’s First Emperor. New York, NY: Random House.
• Everitt, A. (2001): Cicero: A Turbulent Life.
• Holland, T. (2003): Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic. New York, NY: Doubleday.
• Plutarch: Life of Cicero. Accessible at: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/cicero.html.
• Plutarch: Life of Gaius Gracchus. Accessible at: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/gracchus.html.
• Plutarch: Life of Tiberius Gracchus. Accessible at: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/tiberius.html.

The Principate and the early Roman Empire: From Augustus to Caligula

• Beard, M. (2015): SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome. London, UK: Profile Books. Chapters 7-12.
• Cramer, F.H. (1945): ”Bookburning and Censorship in Ancient Rome: A Chapter from the History of Freedom of Speech” in: Journal of the History of Ideas 6(2), pp. 157-196.
• Konstantinos SP Staikos (2007): The History of the Library in Western Civilization Vol II.

New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press.

• McHugh, M.R. (2004): ”Historiography and Freedom of Speech: The Case of Cremutius Cordus” in: Sluiter, Ineke and Rosen, Ralph (ed.): Free Speech in Classical Antiquity. Boston, MA: Brill.
• Sarefield, D.C. (2004): ”Burning knowledge”: Studies of Bookburning in Ancient Rome. Accessible at: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1092663236.
• Seneca Rhetor: Controversiae, X, pr. 5-7. In: Cramer, F.H. (1945): ”Bookburning and Censorship in Ancient Rome: A Chapter from the History of Freedom of Speech” in: Journal of the History of Ideas 6(2).
• Suetonius: The Lives of the Caesars – The Deified Augustus. Accessible at: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/suet-augustus-rolfe.asp.
• Suetonius: The Lives of the Caesars – Tiberius. Accessible at: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/suet-tiberius-rolfe.asp.
• Tacitus: Annals, II, 32. Accessible at: http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.html.

Veiled speech: Fables and the Golden age of Latin Literature

• Beard, M. (2015): SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome. London, UK: Profile Books. Pp. 414.
• Pagán, V. (2004): ”Speaking before superios: Orpheus in Vergil and Ovid” in: Sluiter, I. and Rosen, R. (eds.): Free Speech in Classical Antiquity. Boston, MA:

Great podcasts on Roman history

• Dan Carlin.: Hardcore History ep. 34-39: Death Throes of the Republic. Accessible at: http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-death-throes-of-the-republic-series/.
• Mike Duncan: The History of Rome. http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/.

The democracy of Ancient Athens was the birthplace of equal and uninhibited speech. Or Isegoria and parrhesia to the Athenians. Jacob Mchangama guides you through how oratory was central to the idea and practice of Athenian democracy. What Athenian style free speech entailed for ordinary citizens, comedians, philosophers, and orators. How oligarchic coup d’etats twice drowned Athenian free speech in blood and repression. The extreme methods used by Demosthenes to become the greatest orator of antiquity. And of course: the trial of Socrates: Was he a martyr for free speech or an impious and seditious enemy of democracy?

So the following episode is an attempt to bring to life a pivotal but often forgotten period i as we embark on the first stop of what I hope will be a long journey together through the history of free speech.

Here is what Cambridge professor of Ancient History Paul Cartledge has to say about the episode:

 Free speech in the ancient Athenian democracy (c. 500-322 BCE) came, as Jacob Mchangama so brilliantly and wittily makes clear, in two forms: isegoria (free political speech for adult male citizens, the privilege of having an equal public say) and parrhesia (unregulated public utterance outside formal political arenas). It was one of the cardinal and fundamental principles of ancient Greek demokratia (people-power), the other being freedom itself. But free speech, as he also makes clear, has its inevitable costs – and one of them was the death (partly self-willed, it has to be said) of Socrates, who was besides no ideological democrat. So important are the issues still today that ‘Free speech in Ancient Athens’ is worth an hour of any concerned citizen’s time.

Paul Cartledge

A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus, Cambridge University, author of “Democracy. A Life” and “Ancient Greek Political Thought In Practice”

Literature: Episode 1

(the online versions linked to are not necessarily identical with the versions used or cited from in the podcast).

On the Athenian Democracy          

• Hansen, M.H. (1999): The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Hansen, M.H. (2005): Det athenske demokrati – og vores. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag.
• Todd, S.C. (2005): “Law and Oratory at Athens” in: Gagarin, M. & Cohen, D. (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to AncientGreek Law. Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press.
• Blackwell, C. (ed.) (2003): Dēmos: Classical Athenian Democracy Democracy. Mahoney, A. & Scaife, R. (edd.): The Stoa: A Consortium for Scholarly Publication in the Humanities. Accessible at http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/home?greekEncoding=UnicodeC. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Rowe, C., Schofield, M., Harrison, S. & Lane, M. (eds.) (2008): The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Thought. Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press.
• Kagan, D. (2007): Introduction to Ancient Greek History. Open Yale Courses. Accessible at https://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Herodotus: The History of Herodotus (Rawlinson, G., Trans.). Available at http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War (Crawley, R., Trans.). Available at http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Demosthenes (1926): Against Leptines (Vince, C.A., Vince, M.A. & Vince, J.H., ). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Accessible at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0072%3Aspeech%3D20%3Asection%3D106. Accessed 17/01/2018. Demosthenes.
• Aristotle: Politics (Jowett, B., Trans.). Accessible at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Aristotle: The Athenian Constitution (Kenyon, sir F.G., Trans.). Accessible at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.2.2.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Plutarch: Alcibiades (Dryden, J., Trans.). Accessible at http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/alcibiad.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Xenophon: Hellenica. (Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 1 and 2. Carleton L. Brownson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. vol. 1:1918; vol. 2: 1921) Accessible at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0206
• Cartledge, Paul (2016): Democracy: A life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 

Isegoria and parrhesia

• Momigliano, A. (1974): ”Freedom of Speech in Antiquity” in: Wiener, P.P. (ed.): Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Accessible at: http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=DicHist/uvaGenText/tei/DicHist2.xml;chunk.id=dv2-31;toc.depth=1;toc.id=dv2-31;brand=default. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Saxonhouse, A. (2005): Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Sova, D.B. (2004): Banned Plays: Censorship Histories of 125 Stage Dramas. NY: Infobase Publishing.
• Sluiter, I. & Rosen, R. (eds.) (2004): Free Speech in Classical Antiquity. Leiden, MA: Brill.
• Herodotus: The History of Herodotus (Rawlinson, G., Trans.).available at http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.

The trial of Socrates

• Xenophon (1923): Memorabilia (Merchant, E.C., Trans.) in: Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 4. Crambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0208. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Xenophon (1979): Apology in: Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Available at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0212. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Plato: Apology (Jowett, B., Trans.). Available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Plato: Gorgias (Jowett, B., Trans.). Accessible at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Plato: Symposium (Jowett, B., Trans.). Accessible at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Nails, D. (2005): “Socrates” in: Zalta, E.N. (ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Summer 2017 ed. Accessible at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/socrates/. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Hansen, M.H. (1995): The Trial of Sokrates, From the Athenian Point of View. Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Available at http://www.royalacademy.dk/Publications/High/719_Hansen,%20Mogens%20Herman.pdf. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Stone, I.F. (1988): The Trial of Socrates. Boston, MA: Little Brown.
• Saxonhouse, A. (2005): Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Cartledge, P. (2009): Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Rowe, C., Schofield, M., Harrison, S. & Lane, M. (eds.) (2008): The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Robertson, J.M. (1915): A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern. 3. Ed. London: Watts & Company. Ch. 5.

Demosthenes

• Plutarch: Life of Demosthenes (Dryden, J., Trans.). Accessible at: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/demosthe.html. Accessed 17/01/2018.
• Worthington, I. (2013): Demosthenes of Athens and the Fall of Classical Greece. Oxford Scholarship Online.
• Demosthenes (1930): Third Philippic (Vince, J.H., Trans.). Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press. Accessible at

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0070%3Aspeech%3D9. Accessed 17/01/2018.

• Demosthenes (1926): On the Crown (Vince, C.A., Vince, M.A. & Vince, J.H.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Accessible at

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.%2018. Accessed 17/01/2018.

• Demosthenes (1949): Funeral Oration (DeWitt, N.W. & DeWitt N.J., Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Accessible at

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0080%3Aspeech%3D60. Accessed 17/01/2018.

• Demosthenes: Exordia (DeWitt, N.W. & DeWitt N.J., Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Accessible at

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0068. Accessed 17/01/2018.